What the Forest Taught Me
by Dani-Ellie03
Summary: As Snow pulled the car onto a dirt access road in the woods, she noticed that her grandson was practically bouncing in his seat from excitement. "Are you ready for this?" she asked a little unnecessarily. "Are you kidding?" Henry exclaimed. "I was ready for this the day we bought the bow and arrows!" (or, Snow teaches Henry archery, and Henry teaches Snow to have a little faith)
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** What the Forest Taught Me  
**Summary: **As Snow pulled the car onto a dirt access road in the woods, she noticed that her grandson was practically bouncing in his seat from excitement. "Are you ready for this?" she asked a little unnecessarily. "Are you kidding? I was ready for this the day we bought the bow and arrows!"  
**Spoilers: **Let's say everything up to 2x11, "The Outsider."  
**Rating/Warning:** K+, for brief language. Family fluff.  
**Characters:** Snow and Henry, with guest appearances by Emma and Charming.  
**Disclaimer:** _Once Upon a Time_ and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just having fun with them.  
**Author's Note:** A second Snow-and-Henry story request by Mere-Brennan, and as such, it's sort of a companion piece to my previous story, "The Best Day." You don't have to have read that one to follow this one. At the risk of exposing my utter geekiness for '90s video games (or, you know, this one video game in particular), the title of and inspiration for the story came from a track of the same name from the soundtrack to Secret of Mana, which has long been my favorite video game soundtrack ever. It was too perfect not to use, though. :) As always, feedback is love. Enjoy!

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"Um, Gramma?" came Henry Mills' tentative little voice from the passenger seat beside Snow White. "The school's the other way."

"I'm well aware of that," Snow replied, her tone teasing. Of course she was well aware of where the school was; she'd only taught there every single day for twenty-eight years.

Not that her revelation made Henry any less confused. "But we always practice in the fields behind the school. Unless ..." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, wanting to watch the expression on his face as light dawned. It was only after she piloted the car around a corner that he finally seemed to realize where she was taking him. "Wait a sec. Did I graduate?"

"You did indeed," Snow said with a soft smile.

"Yes!" he whispered, a proud grin spreading across his face. Snow hid a grin of her own and returned her full attention on the road.

For a little while now, Snow had been giving Henry archery lessons in the soccer fields behind the elementary school. Any time the two of them had a free couple of hours, they would head to the stables to borrow a couple bales of hay to use as targets. Then they would make their way over to the school and set up their targets at the bottom of the hill on the fields.

Arrows would be flying within minutes. Snow's were real, of course, but Henry's were tipped in suction cups. The toy archery set still gave him a feel for the mechanics of the weapon, so after his initial disappointment that he wouldn't get to use real arrows, he'd been more than willing to work with it. Plus, Emma would have had Snow's head for giving Henry a real archery set.

Snow didn't think Henry was ready to move up to real weaponry yet, anyway. She did think, however, that he was ready to take his act on the road. The fields weren't presenting as much of a challenge to him anymore, so it was time to up the difficulty level.

Henry had long wanted to feel like a marksman in the Enchanted Forest, and he clearly couldn't have been happier that he was finally getting his chance. As Snow pulled the car onto a dirt access road in the woods, she noticed that her grandson was practically bouncing in his seat from excitement. "Are you ready for this?" she asked a little unnecessarily.

"Are you kidding? I was ready for this the day we bought the bow and arrows!"

Yes, just as she'd suspected. She watched with a soft smile as he took off his seat belt and scrambled out of the car.

Henry waited patiently while she unclicked her own seat belt, removed the key from the ignition, and climbed out of the car. As she rounded the station wagon, she realized he wasn't waiting as patiently as she'd originally believed. His little foot was tapping in anticipation.

Hiding a grin, she opened the hatch. "Let's get to it."

Henry simply beamed in response.

The two of them hooked their quivers over their shoulders, set their bows down on a bale of hay, and lifted everything out of the car. Snow closed the back of the wagon and motioned for Henry to follow her into the woods.

Just a few steps into the trees, Snow found the perfect spot. A couple of trees had fallen long ago, leaving a space that was not too closed in but not wide open, either. "What do you think about right here?" she asked, setting her bale of hay down at the edge of the tree line.

Henry glanced around, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "I like it." He plopped his hay down and held out his hand for her bow and quiver. She handed it over without another word.

Every time they went out, Henry would choose their shooting spot while Snow set up the targets. This time he chose a spot about thirty feet back, which was a bit more distance than the spot he usually chose in the fields. With the added distractions of the woods, Snow wasn't sure that shooting from farther away was the best idea but she let him do it anyway.

After getting the targets set up, she headed over to her grandson. Just as he did at the beginning of every lesson, he was practicing his stance with her bow. His bow was plastic and far lighter than hers. Her bow was also much too big for him, a fact he had come to understand the first time he tried to shoot with it.

Still, she let him handle both the bow and the arrows for a few minutes each time they went out. They never told Emma any of it, though ... mostly because neither of them had a death wish.

"All right, let's get going," she said, gently reaching out for her bow. He handed it over with a sheepish smile before picking up his own.

Already he was having a little trouble finding a good stance. "This is going to be a bit different from the fields," she said, taking care not to make her voice sound too teacher-ish. He always teased her when she slipped back into elementary school teacher mode. "The ground is uneven, which will make finding your footing a little harder. The sounds of the birds in the trees and the animals moving around you are probably going to be distracting. What we're going to work on today is learning how to overcome all that and work with the forest rather than against it. All right?"

"Okay," he nodded.

"Good," Snow smiled. "Now, let's see you try to get off a shot."

He nodded again, planted his feet, and pulled an arrow from the quiver. He expertly notched the arrow but Snow noticed his hands trembling slightly as he raised the bow. She watched as he inhaled twice and set his shoulders.

Just as Henry was about to let the arrow fly, a robin swooped in between him and the target. It was a simple fly-by but it startled Henry to the point that he jerked the bow to the side as he released the arrow. The arrow careened off-course, skimming past his bale of hay and embedding its suction-cup tip in a blanket of dead leaves. "Aw, man!" he muttered, already reaching over his shoulder for another arrow.

"That would have startled me, too," Snow told him gently. "The trick is learning to keep the bow steady even when you're startled. What do you think would have helped you keep the arrow on course?"

He lowered the bow and frowned as he thought about what had gone wrong with his previous shot. "If I'd locked my elbow, I might not have pulled the bow to the side so much. And if I'd been watching out of the corner of my eye, I would have seen the bird coming."

"There you go," she smiled. Henry smiled back and notched another arrow.

He fired off the next two arrows without a hitch. As he was getting ready to release the third, a squirrel darted out from between the trees. Snow held a breath but this time, Henry wasn't startled. He had seen it coming and kept his elbow locked, and the arrow remained steady on its course. "Great job!" Snow exclaimed when the arrow hit the target just left of dead center.

The smile on his face was one of well-deserved pride. "I did it!" he cried.

"You certainly did," she replied, wrapping her arms around him in a congratulatory hug.

"I guess you can learn all kinds of things from the forest," he said, grinning up at her as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"You certainly can," she agreed with a gentle smile.

He held her in the hug for a moment longer before pulling away and going to retrieve his arrows.

The two of them shot side by side, Snow offering tips and fixing his stance every so often, until daylight began to fade. "I think it's time to start heading home, Henry," Snow spoke up after she'd shot her last arrow. "Your mom and grandpa are probably wondering where we are."

"They probably are," he agreed. "Plus, I'm kind of getting hungry."

That revelation came as no surprise to her at all. An eleven-year-old boy was always hungry.

As they walked over to the targets to gather their arrows, Henry asked, "Gramma?"

"Hmm?"

"When you and Mom were in the Enchanted Forest, did you teach her how to do this?"

Snow stopped walking and stared at her grandson with what she was sure was a pained expression on her face. She'd wanted more than anything to teach Emma how to shoot but Emma hadn't seemed at all interested. "No," she replied softly. "She seemed more comfortable with the sword, and I didn't want to push." She'd pushed Emma enough in the Forest; pushing the archery lessons might have been the one thing to completely shut her daughter down.

"We should teach her," he said, giving a little nod as he collected her arrows as well as his own.

At the thought, Snow's heart skipped a beat. Broaching the Enchanted Forest way of life with Emma, especially here in Storybrooke, was something that had to be done delicately, and Snow hadn't yet found the right time and place. "Why do you think we should teach her?"

He shrugged as he carefully handed her the bundle of arrows. "She wants to learn."

Now her heart was beating faster than ever. Emma wanted to learn? Her baby girl wanted to learn archery? "Did she say that to you?"

"No, but I can tell by the way she watches me when I practice. She kind of looks jealous, like she wishes she could do it, too." He shrugged again, a little smile on his face. "So, what do you think? Should we get her an archery set like mine?"

A smile pulled at the corners of Snow's mouth. If Emma agreed to the lessons, something told Snow that she would not be satisfied in the slightest with a plastic bow and arrows tipped with suction cups. "We'll see," she said to her grandson. "How about we bring it up to her tonight before we get her her own set, all right?"

"Yeah, sure," he shrugged. He calmly replaced his arrows in his quiver, completely oblivious to the loop for which he had just thrown his grandmother.

Snow's heart pounded the entire way home. On the one hand, she felt ridiculous for being so nervous about, essentially, asking her daughter a question. On the other hand, this question was far from simple. It was loaded with maybes and could haves and should haves and missed time they were attempting to get back.

She was nervous as hell. Nervous that Emma would say no, or worse, that the question itself would upset her. Henry took these kinds of things – the family activities coming years later than they should have – in stride. Emma, not so much.

As she shifted the car into park with a trembling hand, Henry must have finally realized just how nervous she was. He rested a hand on her arm and smiled. "It'll be okay, Gramma. I know she'll say yes."

What struck her the most was how utterly confident he seemed. And if Henry was certain, she could try to find it within her to be certain as well.

She could do this. One of her lessons from the Forest had been bravery, she reminded herself. After taking a moment to settle her nerves, she returned her grandson's smile. "I'm sure she will."

The Forest had taught her countless things. Courage and patience and how to survive. It had saved her life. But more than anything, the Forest had taught her how to connect with her daughter. Every time she got to hug her baby or hold her hand or even something as simple as keep watch over her at night, her heart had overflowed with joy. And slowly but surely, Emma had come around.

It was crazy how much closer having to rely on each other for survival could bring two people.

And now, Snow was about to take that connection and that bond to the next level. Teaching Henry how to shoot was one thing. A wonderfully fulfilling thing, of course, but he'd asked her. This next step was going to be Snow asking Emma, mother asking daughter and hoping that daughter would agree.

Henry, with all his childlike exuberance, was easy. Emma took a little bit more delicacy. Still, her time with her grandson on the fields and in the woods had taught her to trust him, and if Henry said Emma would agree, then Snow had to believe that she would.

As soon as she set foot over the threshold, she smelled the simmering tomato sauce. A smile that was equal parts comfort and amusement spread across her face. The apartment certainly smelled like home but she should have guessed that leaving Charming and Emma in charge of dinner would result in spaghetti and meatballs for the family. It was the only meal the two of them could manage to put together without any assistance.

David and Emma both looked up from their tasks of stirring the sauce and setting the table, respectively, at the entrance of the other two members of their family. "How'd it go?" Emma asked as she watched Henry and Snow both hang up their quivers and bows on the coat hooks for the time being.

"The woods are really distracting and I have to learn to keep my elbow locked," Henry said sagely.

When Emma arched a confused brow at Snow, she just gave a slight shake of her head. "He did very well," she told her daughter with a smile down at her grandson. Henry beamed at the praise. "Almost got a bulls-eye on his fourth try."

"That's awesome, kid," Emma smiled as she placed the glasses on the table. "Maybe we should go back out there tomorrow so you can show me."

At her words, Henry nudged Snow's hip with the back of his hand. A smile curled on her lips; she couldn't have asked for a more perfect opening. "Actually, we were talking about that."

Charming immediately looked up at her when he caught her hesitant tone. He wrinkled his brow, silently asking her what was wrong. When she quickly darted her eyes in Emma's direction, comprehension washed over his features. He smiled at her, and that smile was all the encouragement she needed. Returning her attention to her daughter, she asked, "How would you feel about learning how to shoot?"

A flurry of emotions crossed Emma's face in a fraction of a second. Snow caught love and anticipation and pride before Emma managed to get her emotional mask back in place. She averted her gaze and refocused on her task. "What, with my own set of suction-cupped arrows?" Emma asked as she fiddled with the silverware, her tone mostly teasing but slightly strained.

And now, it was time to take an even bigger chance. "No. I was thinking you could use my bow."

Emma's head shot up in surprise. When Snow felt Henry's hand wrap around hers and squeeze, she squeezed back. "You're trusting me with real weapons?" Emma deadpanned, a desperate attempt to make a joke.

At that, Snow smirked. "I've seen you wield a sword, remember? I know you can handle real weapons."

For a long moment, everyone was silent. Snow could hear the hum of the refrigerator, the ticking of the wall clock. Then, after what felt like an eternity, Emma nodded. "Yeah, sure."

Snow released a breath she hadn't even been aware she was holding and once again squeezed her grandson's hand, this time in touched relief.

"I already used his weapon," Emma continued, jerking a thumb in her father's direction. "Why not yours?"

David set the wooden spoon down on the counter and stepped over to the table, a look of confused wonder on his face. "When did you use my …" He trailed off as realization hit. "The dragon."

"Yep," Emma sighed. "Gold told me I should take my father's sword on my quest to find magic. Never told me a damn thing about slaying a dragon. Cheeky bastard."

Snow smiled gently as she met her husband's eyes. He looked simultaneously awed that his daughter had slayed a dragon with his sword and disappointed that he hadn't been there to witness it. All it took was a look to tell him that someday, he would have his chance to see her take up a sword. He nodded at her and returned her smile, letting her know that he understood.

"So we're on for tomorrow?" Henry asked. Snow sent out a silent thank you for his inability to let the moment pass without setting the plan in stone.

"We are," Emma affirmed, glancing up at her mother. "If that's all right with you, I mean."

"Of course it's all right with me," Snow replied, trying her hardest to sound nonchalant and not at all like a mother whose child had just made her whole entire week.

"Good," Emma smiled.

And, as was typical of Emma, there was no lingering on the moment. The next words out of her mouth were asking Charming how much longer the spaghetti had to cook because she was starving.

"Just a couple more minutes," David assured her with a chuckle.

With the activity in the room now focused on getting dinner on the table, Henry tugged on Snow's hand and motioned for her to lean close, as if to hear a secret. "I told you she'd say yes," he whispered, grinning at his grandmother.

It was not at all hard to return his grin. "Yes, you certainly did," she replied, thanking her lucky stars for her grandson. Her absolutely wonderful grandson who, in his own way, was bringing his family together.

Bravery and patience and trust had certainly gotten her quite a few things in her time, but the opportunity to spend time with her family, teaching them the skills she herself had learned from the Forest was the most precious gift she could have received.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Once again, y'all have twisted my arm and made me add to this story. ;) Thank you all for being the awesome readers that you are. The favorites and alerts and reviews really do make my day. Hope you enjoy this next part!

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There was not a single time in recent memory that Emma could recall being the first one awake. Usually her mother and father were up first, followed by her and then Henry. Or sometimes Henry and then her … it all depended. The point was, she was not at all used to finding a completely empty and silent kitchen when she went downstairs.

The emptiness did give her a little bit of room to breathe, which was not unwelcome. Breathing room could be a little hard to come by with four people in one little apartment. The silence, though … that unnerved her. It was kind of crazy how quickly one became used to waking up to the sounds of someone else puttering around the kitchen.

Even back before the curse broke, Mary Margaret was usually the first one up. Emma would come downstairs to find coffee brewed and waiting for her and breakfast almost ready. She never told Mary Margaret this, but sometimes she would delay going downstairs for a few minutes and just lie in bed, listening to Mary Margaret hum to herself as she put their meal together and thinking that _this_ was how home should feel.

No, she would never have admitted that out loud, because Mary Margaret would have looked at her with touched affection and would have inevitably said something mushy. And since Emma Swan did not do mushy, she'd kept it to herself.

The only mornings she could recall not waking up to breakfast were the mornings that Mary Margaret was in jail. Those mornings, she'd gone to Granny's for breakfast because the thought of using Mary Margaret's kitchen without Mary Margaret was far too much for her.

This morning, though, there was no breakfast waiting for her, not that she was at all surprised. It was still early, so early that if she hadn't spent all night tossing and turning, she wouldn't be up for another couple of hours. After coming to the realization that sleep wasn't going to happen, she'd climbed out of bed, and now here she was, in an empty and silent kitchen.

She tried to tell herself that it was simply a bad night. They happened on occasion, after all. But somewhere deep down, she knew. A bad night hadn't kept her from sleep. She couldn't sleep because she was nervous.

Her first archery lesson would take place in just a few short hours. Her first archery lesson with her mother. Her mother, who was a badass with a bow and arrow, was going to attempt to teach Emma how to achieve even a fraction of that badassery.

To be completely honest, nervous was an understatement. Emma wasn't just nervous; she was freaking _petrified_.

On some level she didn't quite understand, she knew she wanted to make her mother proud. What if she couldn't handle the bow and arrow? She was decent with a sword, she supposed, but what if she just sucked out loud at archery?

As if tugged along by some unseen force, Emma drifted over to the coat hooks where her son's and mother's bows and quivers still hung. She tried Henry's first but somehow instinctively knew that it was too small for her.

She didn't know how she knew. Maybe it was the way her hand wrapped around the grip or maybe it was because it just didn't feel right in her hands but somehow, she knew. She hung his bow back up and, before she had a chance to think better of it, grabbed her mother's.

Emma tried not to notice the leap of her heart when her hand fit perfectly around her mother's bow. She and Snow were the same size, that was all. The bow was sized for Snow; of course it would fit Emma, too.

That was a rationalization, though, and she knew it. Her mother's bow fit her perfectly, and the little girl somewhere deep inside her was jumping for joy. Kind of like trying on mommy's heels and finding they fit just right instead of being comically large.

She moved as if on autopilot, taking one of Henry's arrows from the quiver and loading into place in Snow's bow. Wait, was loading even the correct term? Emma had no idea, though she supposed she would find out in a few hours. Then she turned around, squinting as she ran her eyes over the downstairs. All she needed now was someplace to aim.

The ghost of a smile tugged at her lips when her eyes settled on the refrigerator. It was in the corner, far enough removed from household items that if her aim completely sucked, at least she wouldn't break anything.

Emma stepped over to the fridge and backed up as far as she could. The first thing she noticed when she drew the string back was that it wasn't as easy as Snow had made it look. Still, she drew in a breath and was about to let go when a voice startled her. "Emma! What on earth do you think you're doing?"

She felt the heat rushing to her cheeks when she spotted her mother standing at the doorway to her bedroom. The amused smirk on her face undermined any bit of parental authority she'd been attempting by placing her hands on her hips. "I … was just ..." Emma sighed. Talk about being completely and totally busted.

As Snow crossed the room, her smirk morphed into a kind, understanding smile. She stood next to her daughter and looked ahead, trying to determine what Emma had chosen as a target. "What were you trying to hit?" she softly asked after a moment.

"The fridge," Emma admitted with a sheepish cringe.

Snow's brows quirked up in amusement. "The whole fridge?"

"Just wanted to make sure I could hit the broad side of a barn, you know?"

"You'll be fine." Something in Snow's calm, kind tone made Emma believe it. "If it'll make you feel better, though, I'll let you shoot at the fridge just this once."

"Aw, just this once?" Emma asked teasingly.

Snow laughed before jokingly pitching her voice to sound stern. "Yes. There will be no archery or sword fighting in the house."

At that, Emma smirked. Most parents had to tell their kids not to play ball in the house; she didn't imagine that parents having to make rules about archery and fencing in the house was a thing that happened very often. She didn't want to lose her nerve by overthinking it, though, so she asked, "So what do I do?"

"Exactly what you were doing. Your stance was pretty good as it was. It just needed a couple little adjustments."

She resumed her previous position, standing in front of the refrigerator with her right hand drawing back the arrow and the string. Her left hand gripped the bow tightly, the tip of the arrow resting on her index finger.

"Now, the fridge is kind of a big target," Snow said as she slightly adjusted not only the position of Emma's right arm but also the arrow so that the flights wouldn't graze her baby's finger when she let the arrow fly. "You'll definitely be able to hit it from here. Focus on something on the fridge and use that as your target. It'll give you a better sense of how you're aiming."

Emma nodded as she scanned the front of the fridge. What could she use as a target? A second later, her eyes settled on the princess magnet her mother had bought as a joke, which Emma didn't find all that funny though everyone else in her family did. _Oh hell yes_, she thought, a smirk pulling at her lips. She would have no problem whatsoever aiming at that. "Now what?" she asked her mother.

"Take aim, and when you feel you're ready, release the string."

After taking a couple of deep, preparatory breaths, Emma let the arrow fly. Instantly, she was gripped with panic. What if she missed? What if the arrow flew wildly off course and ended up breaking something? She forced herself to keep her eyes open as the arrow whizzed through the air.

She hadn't had time to think of any more what-ifs before the arrow smacked right into the magnet, knocking it to the ground. The arrow, too, fell to the floor, the force of the release far too strong for the suction cup to hold. "Holy shit!" Emma cried, staring at the bow in barely concealed wonder. That sucker was _powerful_!

Snow's eyes were clearly filled with pride even as they crinkled up in laughter over Emma's reaction to her first shooting of an arrow. "You shot a toy arrow with a real bow," she told her, smiling. "If you'd shot with Henry's, the arrow probably would have stuck the way it was supposed to. The magnet was your target, though, yes?"

All Emma could do was nod.

A smile that was equal parts pride and excitement curled on her mother's lips. "Now I can't wait to get you out on the fields with the real arrows. I have a funny feeling we'll find that you, my darling daughter, are a natural."

Emma couldn't help but smile back. She couldn't wait to get out on the fields, either. Both the independent adult side of her and the lonely little girl side of her were now itching for the lessons to begin in earnest. "I'm sorry I never showed an interest in this when we were in the Enchanted Forest."

"None of that, now," Snow said to her as she crossed the room to pick up both the magnet and Henry's arrow. The arrow was no worse for the wear but the ceramic magnet now sported a small chip in the top right corner.

"No, I mean I'm sorry I never showed you I was interested," Emma continued without any real idea where this confession was coming from. "Because I was. I just … didn't know how to ask, I guess."

Snow turned around, the shocked look on her face reminiscent of the expression that had come across her features when Emma had finally started talking to her in the nursery. She stepped up to Emma, cupping her daughter's cheek in the palm of her hand. It wasn't that Emma hadn't known how to ask; it was that she had been afraid to ask. Still, Snow decided, for her daughter's sake, to keep her response in line with Emma's terms. "You can ask me anything, Emma, even the things you don't know how to ask."

Emma swallowed hard and nodded.

The two of them were so lost in the moment that neither one noticed Henry, who had started downstairs when he heard voices but paused when he realized he didn't want to break up the early morning lesson between mother and daughter, sitting on the steps to the loft and watching them with a smile on his face.


	3. Chapter 3

"I handled myself quite well in the Enchanted Forest," Emma grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. Her mother had just piloted the station wagon back onto the main road after stopping at the stables to pick up a couple bales of hay. "I killed zombies, fought with a pirate, climbed a beanstalk, made friends with a giant, and almost had my heart ripped out of my chest. Hell, I killed a _dragon_ here, remember?"

"I am well aware of all of that," Snow replied, trying her hardest not to sound amused. It didn't quite work.

"My point is, I'm kind of used to learning on the fly. I can adapt perfectly well to less-than-perfect environments."

"I'm aware of that, too."

"And you're still going to start me off in the soccer fields?"

"Yes indeed."

Emma groaned, slumping back in the seat. A sigh escaped her lips when she caught her mother glancing up at her in the rear view mirror, an amused smile lighting her features. Oh, yes, added to the indignity of having her first archery lesson take place in a soccer field behind an elementary school after surviving the Enchanted Forest was the fact that she was sitting in the back seat of her mother's car.

Talk about feeling like a six-year-old.

Sitting in the back seat couldn't really be helped, though. David had asked if he could tag along … to watch his family of archers in action, he'd said. Emma hadn't had the heart to say no, though she sort of wished she had when she realized that Snow would be driving and David would be riding shotgun.

No, that wasn't true. She liked that her father had wanted to come, despite the fact that his wanting to come meant she had to ride in the back seat with her eleven-year-old son.

"It's okay, Mom," Henry said, giving her a calm smile. "You don't want to start out in the woods. Trust me on that."

Snow chuckled, once again glancing up in the rear view mirror. "The reason I'm starting you in the fields is because I want to remove as many of the variables as possible. You're going to want to feel comfortable, and I want to be able to focus on your technique."

Emma squinted at the back of her mother's head for a long moment before turning to Henry. "Does she always sound so … teacher-ish?"

"No, not always," Henry replied, stifling a giggle.

"Good."

David caught Snow's eye, and the two of them shared a smirk before Snow refocused her attention on the road ahead of them. Emma turned her head and watched Storybrooke pass by in a blur.

The closer they got to the school, the more her heart started to pound and the clammier her hands got. It hadn't escaped anyone's notice that this was the first structured lesson Emma had ever had with her parents. Most parents got a lifetime of teaching their kids, but Snow and David had had to wait twenty-eight years for this moment. And Emma … most of what she knew, she'd taught herself. She'd had to wait twenty-eight years for this moment, too.

Twenty-eight years was an awfully long time to wait for something so basic.

As such, Emma was sure that everyone was afraid of somehow messing it up but Emma was starting to get _really_ nervous. Part of her was sure she would be fine. The experiment in the kitchen had proven that she had a knack for the weapon, at any rate. Still, there was a small part of her that kept envisioning her first shot missing the target entirely and somehow breaking the school's windows.

By the time Snow pulled into a parking space, Emma already had the incident report written up in her head with "wayward arrow" listed on the request for the replacement window. Henry, who had clicked off his seat belt before Snow had even straightened out, bounded out of the car and ran around the back. _Clearly he's done this a few times before_, Emma thought, smirking as she unbuckled her own seat belt.

His enthusiasm was sort of infectious. She was still nervous as all get-out, though.

She climbed out of the car and was content to just watch her son get ready for the lesson. No, not lesson. Reinforcement. He'd already mastered the fields – his words – so this morning's activities would mostly be reinforcement for him. Emma was the one on the hot seat today, though Snow swore up and down that she would be able to instruct both of them at the same time. She'd been a teacher for twenty-eight years, after all. She certainly knew how to divide her attention amongst her students quite well.

Not that any of their worrying over Snow's attention mattered in the end. Within seconds, it became obvious that Henry was going to use this opportunity to show off for his grandfather. "Gramps, you've got to see this!" he exclaimed as he ran down the hill carrying both his and Snow's equipment. "Gramma says I'm getting to be a master!"

"A master?" Emma murmured to her mother as she hoisted a bale of hay out of the back of the car.

"He really is getting quite good," Snow replied with a small shrug. She grabbed the other bale of hay along with the targets, set everything on the ground, and closing the back of the station wagon. "A few more lessons in the woods and I think he'll be ready to move up to a youth bow. I just wanted to talk to you about it before I brought it up to him."

Emma hesitated. The thought of her son firing real arrows out of a real bow sent her stomach into a tailspin. After a moment passed and she hadn't said anything, Snow just smiled at her. "You don't have to answer right now. How about we see how today goes before making any decisions, hmm?"

"Okay," Emma agreed. Yes, thinking about it first sounded like a fantastic plan.

The two of them made their way down the hill carrying the hay. While Snow set up the targets, Emma stalked over to her son, who was showing his grandfather the proper way to draw back the string … on Snow's bow. "All right, kid, hand it over."

Smiling sheepishly, Henry unhooked his grandmother's quiver from his shoulder and handed both it and the bow over to Emma. "You'll be fine, Mom."

"So everyone keeps telling me," she murmured, a smirk turning up a corner of her mouth. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," he smiled. Barely a second later, he turned his attention to his own bow, once again preparing to show his grandfather everything he'd learned thus far.

Emma pulled an arrow out of the quiver, examining it with one eye while watching her mother finish setting up the targets with the other. This arrow was a bit heavier than Henry's and, obviously, far pointier. She remembered quite well how her mother had felled an ogre with one of these suckers. A giant, monstrous ogre.

Oh, yeah, she could totally break a window with this thing.

"Rule number one," Snow said softly as she plucked the arrow from her daughter's hand, "is to relax. We're not in a life-or-death struggle here. It's perfectly okay if it takes you a little while to get used to the bow, and it's perfectly okay if your aim isn't accurate yet."

"Even if my aim is so bad I break a window?" Emma blurted out, then winced. Damn it, she hadn't meant to say that out loud.

Snow raised her eyebrows in surprise. "With the kind of aim you showed in the kitchen this morning, I think the windows are more than safe." After a beat of silence, she gave her daughter a sardonic smile. "Besides, the arrow would chock into the hill long before it hit a window. Why do you think I chose this location in the first place?"

Emma finally smiled.

"Now, are you ready?"

After drawing a deep breath, Emma nodded. It was now or never. Bow in hand, she stepped over to the targets.

Just like that morning in the kitchen, Emma raised the bow and drew back the string. And just like that morning in the kitchen, Snow made a couple of minor adjustments to her stance before giving her the go-ahead to let go.

Emma visualized the arrow heading straight for the center of the target. After bringing the bow down a hair, Emma released the string.

As soon as the arrow launched, her eyes squeezed shut of their own volition. She opened them again when she heard Henry murmur, "Oh, holy cow."

The arrow had stuck into the target dead in the center. Her jaw dropped open in shock but she quickly covered and snapped it shut. A glance out of the corner of her eye proved that her parents were just as shocked as she and Henry were, but behind that surprise, clear as day, was pride.

"I, um, guess I won't be breaking any windows, huh?" Emma asked, her voice a touch too shaky to pull off the nonchalance needed for the joke.

"No," David replied with a soft, proud smile. "I guess you won't be."

Smiling just as widely as her husband but knowing that making a big deal out of it would only make Emma uncomfortable, Snow handed her another arrow. "Let's try again, this time without me fixing your stance."

Emma nodded, swallowed hard, and raised the bow for another shot. She copied her motions from the previous shot, took a deep breath, and took aim.

This time, the arrow lodged itself into the red ring of the target. _Crap_, Emma thought, trying hard to school her features so her disappointment didn't show as she lowered the bow.

"No, Emma, that was great!" Snow exclaimed, resting a reassuring hand on her daughter's shoulder. "You've got a remarkable eye. You can't expect to hit a bullseye every single time, you know."

"I know," Emma replied, giving her mother a tiny smile. She pulled another arrow from the quiver, determined now to learn from her mistake. The arrow had hit slightly to the right of the spot she'd anticipated, so she adjusted her aim for her third shot.

And she was back in the yellow, just below her bullseye. She couldn't help the excited grin that curled on her lips.

"Wow," David murmured. "First she kills a dragon about a minute and a half after finding out they exist and now she's getting bullseyes her first time out shooting. That's it; my daughter is a genius."

Before Emma had a chance to react to _that_, Henry asked, "Are you sure you've never done this before?"

"I'm sure," she mumbled, suddenly uncomfortable with the praise and attention.

Thankfully, it was Snow White to the rescue. "Perhaps I should have started you in the woods after all," she grinned, arching a mischievous eyebrow at her daughter.

"Told you," Emma shrugged, smiling back.


	4. Chapter 4

Barely five arrows into the lesson, it was abundantly clear that the soccer fields were not going to present the slightest challenge to Emma. Still, Snow let her daughter empty the quiver. Then she stepped forward to remove the arrows from the target. "Gramma, can we go to the woods now?" Henry asked, his eyes sparkling in anticipation.

Snow smiled at her grandson's enthusiasm before darting her gaze to Emma. "I think we should," she said, watching her daughter carefully to gauge how she felt about changing locations so soon after setting up. "We could stay here but I think you both need something that will challenge you a bit more than the fields."

Emma had no issues with moving but she looked to David, considering he was the one who was just tagging along on the family's little adventure. He gave her a smile to indicate that he didn't mind at all. "All right, I guess we're going to the woods now," she agreed with a sigh, determined not to let on that she was actually rather excited about this development.

She had a reputation to uphold, after all.

Henry, it seemed, had no such reputation to uphold. "Yes!" he exclaimed, dashing forward to collect his own arrows from the target. Emma noted with a sense of pride that all of his were in the red and yellow as well. Maybe Snow had a point about wanting him to move up to a real bow. The toy one seemed to present as little challenge to him as the fields presented to her.

Still, there was that twinge of panic at the thought of her son shooting with a real weapon. She hoped and prayed he would never ask her to teach him how to shoot a gun. She had a funny feeling her answer to that would be a resounding oh, _hell_ no.

She was startled back to the present when Snow handed her the arrows. Mother and daughter shared a smile, then, while Emma carefully replaced the arrows in the quiver, Snow headed back to dismantle the targets with Henry. Since the two of them were old hats at the setting-up and taking-down aspects of this particular adventure, David and Emma were left with nothing to do but follow them up the hill and back to the car.

After they got all the equipment back into the station wagon, everyone piled in to move their little training session to the woods. Just like before, Emma settled in the back seat next to Henry. She was notably less annoyed this time, perhaps because her nerves had settled a bit in the wake of not breaking one of the school's windows.

As Snow backed out of the parking space, Emma felt more than saw Henry's eyes on her. A glance to her side proved that he was staring at her in not at all concealed awe. "What is it, kid?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious.

Henry blinked as if coming out of a daydream. His cheeks flushed when he realized he'd been caught staring. "N-nothing," he stammered. "It's just … you're _good_, Mom. You're really good."

"Thanks," she murmured, flicking her eyes to her parents because the absolute last thing she wanted was for this to turn into a _moment_. From her vantage point diagonally behind her mother, she could see the proud grin on Snow's face. Only after glancing in the side mirror did she catch the proud yet wistful look in David's eyes.

She slumped back into the seat, trying to understand what had made her father so emotional. A moment later it hit her: she was learning how to use her mother's weapon and everyone was around to see it. They'd all still been separated when she cut her teeth on her father's sword. He'd still been David Nolan then. He hadn't known he was her father, and she had still thought of him as the guy who'd broken her best friend's heart.

The curse had stolen yet another first from them, she realized with a pang of sadness. Emma had learned how to wield a sword without him.

She was jerked back to reality when the car came to a stop. Whoa, they were at the woods already? Emma blinked and glanced out the window. Sure enough, Snow had pulled the station wagon onto the shoulder of a dirt access road surrounded by large, towering trees.

Once again, Henry and Snow emptied the car and took the bales of hay, leaving David and Emma to follow behind them with the bows and quivers. Emma at least was carrying her mother's equipment. David had Henry's, which looked even smaller in his hands than it actually was. Emma couldn't help the amused smile that curled on her lips when he hooked Henry's quiver over his shoulder. "What's so funny?" David asked her.

"Nothing, really," she shrugged, choking back a snicker. "It's just that you look kind of ridiculous. A grown man with a toy bow and arrows."

A smile tugged at his lips as well. "Well, you could switch with me so I don't look as ridiculous," he teased.

"No, because then I'd look ridiculous. I think I would much rather you look ridiculous."

He chuckled. "Gee, thanks."

"You're quite welcome," she grinned.

They walked down the path in the woods in silence for a long beat. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him looking her over but she didn't say anything to draw attention to it. Then David drew in a heavy breath, as if preparing himself to say something difficult. "Your mother's weapon looks good on you, though, Emma. Like you were born for it."

Emma's breath caught in her throat as she came to a dead stop on the path. David paused next to her, his expression hesitant but his eyes swimming with love and sincerity. "We used to argue over you, you know. Playfully, of course, but we used to argue over which weapon you would be better at, which one we should teach you first. I always said you would be a master with a sword. Snow was the one who was convinced you would be a fantastic archer. Looks like she was right."

Well, now. Emma hadn't been expecting that at all. It was overwhelming to think of her parents jokingly bickering over her before she was even born. Her time in what should have been her nursery had shown her that they'd lovingly prepared for her arrival. That had also been an overwhelming realization, considering she'd grown up thinking her parents had thrown her away.

It seemed like every day, they were discovering something else the curse had stolen from them. Some lost little moment in time, something they could never get back.

All of a sudden, Emma blinked in realization. The curse may have stolen the first from them – her first use of her father's sword – but it hadn't yet stolen the entire opportunity. Not completely, anyway. She was decent with a sword, but she was far from a master. Who better to teach her than Prince Charming himself?

Her time in the Forest had taught her to open up to her mother. To take a chance on someone else, let go of her anger, and let Snow in. Maybe now it was time to do the same with her father. "I wouldn't say I'm a master archer. I've shot like, seven arrows! But even if I am, I still used your sword first. Nothing will ever change that."

A sad smile tugged at David's lips. Emma returned the smile while taking a deep breath. It was once again time to take a chance. "And, um, I wouldn't mind getting some pointers. If you wouldn't mind giving them, I mean."

The smile on her father's face instantly grew wider. His daughter's request had obviously touched him. "I would be honored to give them." Emma smiled back while holding a breath, once again fearing that this was going to turn into some kind of emotional family moment. To her immense relief, David took a page from his daughter's book and made a joke. "You know," he said, shifting Henry's quiver on his shoulder and raising his voice so his grandson could hear him, "a bow and arrows get heavy after a while."

Henry turned around, giggling and walking down the path backwards. "You think _that's_ heavy? Try carrying a bale of hay!"

When Henry faced forward, David winked at Emma, who simply grinned. Then they slipped back into easy conversation, completely oblivious to the discussion being held on the path ahead of them.

"You're right, Gramma," Henry murmured to Snow as he shifted the bale of hay in his arms. He hadn't been kidding about it getting heavy after a while. Thankfully, the shooting spot he and Snow had chosen the day before was just beyond the trees. "They're talking."

"I knew they would," Snow smiled. That was, after all, the reason she and Henry had taken off ahead of them with the hay in the first place.

The pain in her husband's eyes as he proudly watched his baby girl learn how to shoot her mother's weapon had not escaped Snow's notice. She was once again sharing something with Emma that he couldn't. He didn't begrudge her any of it, she knew, but he most certainly had a right to feel disappointed that he'd missed so much more with Emma than she had.

So Snow had been more than willing to do anything she could to ensure that her husband got equal time with their daughter, even if all she could give them at the moment was a few stolen moments as they walked through the woods carrying bows and arrows.

At long last, the group arrived at their new location. Snow and Henry set the bales down while David and Emma chose the shooting spot. A glance over her shoulder told Snow that Emma was getting nervous again; her shoulders were tense and there was apprehension clouding her features. Snow had no idea why Emma was so anxious; even with the added distractions of the forest, she had no doubt in her mind that Emma would do wonderfully.

David must have picked up on his daughter's tension as well, because he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Snow winced, waiting for Emma to tense up even more, but it never happened. Instead, Emma calmed, relaxing her tense muscles and giving her father a tiny, grateful smile.

Emma then pulled away to get herself situated. When Snow met her husband's eyes, silently asking what miracle had happened on the two-minute walk down the path, he just gave her a little wink and a grin over Emma's head. Then he mouthed, _Thank you_.

Snow couldn't help smiling back. Of course he'd seen through her oh so sneaky attempt at forcing father and daughter into some alone time. He knew her far too well for her to pull things like over on him. She smiled back and mouthed, _You're welcome_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** Just because I haven't said it in a while: you guys are awesome. Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and alerts!

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"Emma, you need to relax."

Snow White may have been a lot of things but subtle wasn't one of them. At least not at this very moment. Emma lowered the bow and scowled at her mother. "I know that I need to relax, but do you know what's really hard? Trying to relax when someone keeps telling you to relax."

Beside her, Henry opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, seemingly thinking better of it. Instead, he turned to his grandfather and showed him some feature of his bow that Emma was sure was relatively common.

At least her son had the sense to leave her alone. Snow simply tried to hide an amused smirk as she said, "Don't make me tell you to watch your tone."

Emma let out a frustrated breath through her nose as she raised the bow. They'd been out here a good ten minutes and she hadn't even fired off a single arrow yet. She couldn't seem to concentrate. How come she had never noticed how _busy_ the woods were? Birds flitted from tree to tree, chirping to each other as they passed overhead. Tiny animals scurried over dead leaves and through the underbrush. The faint voices of hikers somewhere off in the distance carried through the trees.

How the hell could Emma be expected to focus when everything was this … noisy?

When Snow had warned her that the forest presented its own set of challenges, Emma hadn't quite believed her. Not that she thought her mother had been lying; she just hadn't thought there would be that much of a difference from the fields. But there was a difference, all right. A huge difference, as evidenced by the fact that the bow had begun to shake in Emma's trembling hands. Grunting in aggravation, she once again lowered the bow.

"Emma–" Snow started.

She trailed off when David spoke up softly. "Emma, listen to me." Emma rolled her eyes as she turned to face her father but before she had a chance to say a single word, he added, "Don't move, and don't say anything. Just listen to my voice."

"Do I really look like I'm in the mood for story time?"

Henry brought his hand up to his mouth to muffle a giggle.

"I thought I told you not to say anything," David said, giving her a wry smile. "And I'm not going to tell you a story. What I'm going to do is count, and I want you to time your breathing with my count. In to three, out to four." He started to count but stopped when he got to two and she hadn't inhaled. "In to three, out to four, Emma, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it," she snapped, then winced when she realized how bratty she was being. She and frustration did not get along well, but it wasn't fair of her to take her frustration out on her family. David was only trying to help; she owed it to him to try to let him help her. When he started the count over, she inhaled and then exhaled when he got to three.

It only took a couple repetitions of careful, deliberating breathing for her to calm down considerably. Though she could still hear all the noises of the woods, they no longer seemed quite so deafening. David continued to count, first to three and then to four, as she raised the bow with now steady hands, and she continued to breathe in time with his count as she took aim. Once she had the target locked in, she released the string and let the arrow fly.

It thunked into place just inside the red rings of the target. Emma released a breath she hadn't even been aware she'd been holding. Holy _shit_, that was nerve-wracking. Maybe her mother had had the right idea by starting her in the fields.

Not that she would ever admit _that_ out loud.

Her father had stopped counting the second she released the arrow. She glanced over at him and gave him a smile. He smiled back at her and winked, acknowledging her silent gratitude just as silently.

Snow smiled gently at Emma as well as she handed her a second arrow. "That was great! We just need to work on your learning how to tune out the distractions."

"I've kind of always had a problem with that," Emma admitted somewhat sheepishly. "Sometimes I would grip like that during tests when I was a kid. I'd be sitting there, doing my work, and all of a sudden, my brain would just start focusing on all the little sounds you normally never hear. The scratching of everyone else's pens on their papers, the ticking of the clock on the wall, the hum of the fluorescent lights … I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else."

Snow nodded at her, her expression kindly understanding. She'd spent twenty-eight years as a teacher, after all. She'd seen children freeze up during tests or class assignments before. "How did you find proper focus again when that happened?"

Emma shut her eyes and tried to recall exactly what she'd done to regain her concentration. When she was younger, the panic had simply gone away on its own. As she got older, though, she'd learned to control it at least somewhat. She'd never been able to stop it from happening, but she figured out a way to bring herself out of it.

Her eyes snapped open as realization hit her. "I would do pretty much what David just did with me. When I realized what was happening, I would put my pen down, close my eyes, and take deep breaths until I calmed down."

Snow nodded, a wry smile pulling at her lips. "So, it's like I said: you need to relax."

"Oh, shush," Emma murmured, hiding a smile of her own as she nocked the arrow.

Now that her mini-meltdown was seemingly over, Henry resumed shooting as well. Emma just stood with her bow lowered, watching him. He'd quite obviously taken his lessons with his grandmother to heart because his stance was pretty much perfect.

Well, it looked perfect to Emma, at any rate. With a little smirk, she raised the bow and tried to focus more on her breathing than the multitude of noises around her.

She made the next couple of shots in silence. Her aim wasn't as good here as it was on the fields. She was hitting blue and black rather than red and yellow. Though Snow kept trying to convince her that she was doing perfectly fine, each shot that missed sent her frustration soaring.

Henry emptied his quiver and sat down on the ground to wait for Emma to empty hers. He made a concerted effort to engage his grandfather in conversation, though, so she wouldn't feel rushed. Hiding a grateful smile, Emma nocked the second-to-last arrow.

Just as she was about to release the string, a tiny brown rabbit hopped out of the trees and darted across the clearing. The small animal's sudden appearance startled Emma to the point that she jerked the bow to the side. For the first time, Emma's arrow missed both the target and the hay entirely and lodged itself into the forest floor. "Shit!"

"I did the exact same thing yesterday," Henry spoke up softly, "only with a squirrel."

Emma lowered the bow, utterly disappointed in herself. If she hadn't been so damn focused on controlling her damn breathing, she would have seen the rabbit coming.

"Hey, it's all right," Snow told her, resting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "That's why we're here, remember? So you can learn to overcome things like that."

"Yeah, I guess," Emma grumbled as she pulled the final arrow from the quiver. It struck her a second later just how much like a disappointed little kid she sounded. At the moment, she didn't really care. All she wanted now was to get herself back on track.

The lone arrow sticking up out of the ground mocked her. She raised the bow with purpose and aimed straight for dead center. All at once, the various sounds around her faded away. Gone were the birds chirping and animals skittering and the sound of the leaves fluttering in the breeze. She could hear nothing but her own breathing and her own heartbeat. As soon as she was ready, she released the string.

And she hit her second bullseye of the day.

She grinned as she lowered the bow, a sense of vindication filling her heart. Take _that_, tiny, fluffy distractions!

When she turned around, she saw both parents smiling proudly at her. "Wow," David said, his eyebrows raised, suitably impressed. "Remind me never to make you angry."

Emma chuckled as she stepped forward to collect her arrows. "Because you wouldn't like me when I'm angry?" Henry at least snickered at her attempt at humor. David just looked perplexed. "Never mind," she sighed.

She plucked the solo arrow out of the ground first, glaring at it as if it were the arrow's fault it was stuck in the dirt. Then she collected the others from the target – where they belonged, thank you very much – removing the bullseye last.

Henry, too, had collected his arrows, and as Emma returned to her shooting spot, she again took a moment to just watch him. She noticed for the first time that it took him a little longer to aim here in the woods than it had in the fields as well. At least she wasn't the only one having issues acclimating to their new environment.

"The next thing we should do," Snow said as Emma nocked an arrow, her tone gentle yet amused, "is see if we can get you to focus without being spitting mad."

"I don't know," Emma teasingly replied. "Spitting mad is kind of how I operate."

David successfully managed to turn his amused snicker into a little cough. Snow allowed a brief smile at her daughter's candor before turning a look on her that was so teacher-ish, Emma flinched. "Holy crap, thanks for the flashback to elementary school. I almost expected you to send me to the principal's office."

Snow raised an eyebrow at her daughter but the smile she couldn't quite hide undermined any amount of reproof she had been hoping to project. "Keep it up, and I just might. Now, focus."

Henry once again muffled a giggle behind his hand. Emma heaved a mock put-upon sigh as she raised the bow. "Yes, Mother."


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** Happy belated birthday to AlessaGillespie5! ;) Also, this is another one of those chapters that wrote itself. I have no idea where it came from.

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Emma's arms were beginning to _ache_. She'd been shooting constantly for the last forty-five minutes, the only breaks being the brief pauses in action to collect the arrows, and sometimes Snow did that for her. She was trying to power through the aches, partly because she knew how much her parents were enjoying spending this time with her, but mostly because shooting was a lot more fun that she had anticipated.

But she could only power through it for so long. The bow shook in her hand when she drew back the string, not from nerves this time but from muscle fatigue. She released the string and winced when the arrow hit the very edge of the hay bale, which sent it skittering off to the side. Her next arrow didn't do any better; it flew past the bale of hay entirely.

"You're getting tired," Snow said as she gently slipped the bow from her daughter's hand.

"What gave it away?" Emma asked, somewhat embarrassed.

The corners of Snow's mouth turned up in a smirk. "Go, sit, take a break. We can pick it back up once you've rested a bit, if you want."

Damn straight Emma wanted, though admitting as much out loud would have been very ... un-Emma. She somehow managed to restrain herself and simply give her mother a curt nod. She was not about to let anyone know that she found this archery stuff a lot of fun, though judging by the knowing smirk on her mother's lips, she had figured it out anyway.

Emma sat down on a small rock to rest. She divided her attention between her mother, who had reclaimed her arrows and had begun shooting in her daughter's absence, and her son, who was seemingly full of energy. How were his arms not killing him by now?

Or maybe they were and he was just better at hiding it than she was. After he emptied his quiver, he announced that he was going to take a break, too. He set his bow down and ran over to sit next to Emma. She started to attempt to make room for him on the rock, but he just plopped down on the ground without a second thought. _Boys_, she thought with a slight shake of her head.

Seizing the opportunity, David collected Henry's arrows from the target, picked up his abandoned bow, and took aim. "Now you really look ridiculous," Emma laughingly called to her father. He simply smirked over his shoulder at her before refocusing on the target and releasing the string.

The arrow flew through the air and stuck to the target between the red and yellow rings. Emma sat up straight, her eyebrows raised in surprise. All this time she'd thought archery was totally her mother's thing. Who knew her father would be such a decent shot, too?

"You were saying?" he teasingly called back to her.

He still looked kind of ridiculous shooting with a toy bow and suction-cup-tipped arrows but somehow mocking him no longer seemed funny. "Nothing," she murmured, her awe making David chuckle to himself. "Nothing at all."

Her parents exchanged an amused glance. Then David winked. When Snow winked back, Emma somehow understood that her father had just issued a challenge and her mother had accepted.

Within seconds, Snow and David were locked in a playful shoot-off. Emma and Henry exchanged a quiet giggle at the scene the two of them were making. It didn't take long at all for Snow to pull ahead, though David kept up surprisingly well for an adult shooting with a toy bow.

In quiet, reflective moments like this, it struck Emma what she was really doing: sitting in the woods, learning how to shoot arrows with Snow White's bow. Watching Snow White and Prince Charming partake in a friendly archery competition. And, if they had time today, she would probably end up having a sword fighting lesson from none other than Prince Charming himself.

And these people, who looked no older than she was herself, were not just Snow White and Prince Charming. They were her parents. Her parents who'd sent her away not because they didn't want her but because they loved her so much, they were willing to sacrifice their happiness for hers. They were willing to use what could very well have been their last moments, for all they knew, to get her to safety.

It was so freaking surreal, and if she really thought about it, it was insane. Like, call-the-men-with-the-white-coats _insane_. And yet, it was her reality. A reality she was finding, to her immense surprise, that she could no longer imagine any other way.

"You get used to it," Henry spoke up, startling Emma from her reverie.

She blinked in confusion. Got used to what? "Huh?"

"The muscles," he clarified. She noticed for the first time that she had been massaging her left arm with her right hand. "They won't be as sore after the first couple of times."

"What about the fingers?" Emma asked, glancing down at her hand. The bowstring had begun to chafe her fingers, resulting in tender flesh.

"You get used to that, too," he assured her. "There are things you can get to protect your fingers if it really bothers you, but I didn't like the one Gramma got me. I felt like it was in the way."

Emma nodded, giving her son a smile. Then she once again raised her eyes to watch her parents. Their friendly competition had degenerated into teasing trash talk at some point while she and Henry had been talking, making Emma smirk. Snow may have been the better archer, but David was quicker on his feet in the verbal one-upmanship department.

As she watched, it struck her again how … at home her mother looked clutching the bow. She'd first noticed it in the Enchanted Forest, how the bow looked _right_ in Snow's hand. At first, she'd been surprised. Meek schoolteacher Mary Margaret Blanchard did not at all strike her as the type to be proficient with a bow. But the way Snow handled the weapon as if she'd been born with one in her hand and the way she hadn't flinched when facing an ogre twenty times her size had told Emma that the Mary Margaret she knew was gone.

She'd come to find out, though, that Mary Margaret wasn't gone, not completely. She was still there, mingled in with Snow White. She was in the way Snow knew exactly how Emma took her coffee or how she liked her spaghetti a little overcooked so that it was soft. She was in the way Snow could gently break through all of Emma's … stuff and get her to admit things she would never admit to anyone else. She was in the way Snow could reassure her with nothing more than a simple look or a kind smile.

No, Mary Margaret wasn't gone. She was part and parcel of Snow White now, and to Emma, she was simply her mother.

"Mom?"

Emma started again, glancing over at her son. "What?"

"I know Gramma had all the teaching experience because of the curse and everything, but Gramps is a good teacher, too, you know."

A smirk pulled at her lips. Here he was, not realizing she'd already made plans for lessons with her father, attempting to get to her to consider asking for lessons with her father. It was an admirable thing to do, but she needed to work with him on his subtlety. "I'm sure he is, kid."

Though she could see a lot of Mary Margaret Blanchard in Snow, it was harder to find the David Nolan in her father. Prior to the curse breaking, she'd spent so much time angry with him for the way he'd treated Mary Margaret that she hadn't really gotten to know him. What she could see, though, was that underneath all the pain and the confusion had been a man who'd simply wanted to protect everyone. He'd just gone about it in the completely wrong way.

Emma could see that side of David Nolan, the protective side, every time David tried everything in his power to smooth over heightened emotions or the way he would stand in front of her or Snow during a confrontation. She could see it whenever he hurt simply because someone he loved was hurting.

And she realized with a jolt of sudden despair that he was the kind of father she'd always wanted when she was a kid. The kind who would have scooped his baby girl up in his arms after a nightmare and held her tight until she fell back to sleep. The kind who wouldn't have hesitated to kiss a scraped knee while also not hesitating to convince her to get back on the bike or up the tree and to not fear what had hurt her. The kind of who would have told jokes and played games and loved her with all his heart.

This time, the independent adult who had been perfectly fine on her own couldn't silence the hurt and angry little girl. She should have had so much more in her life. She should have had her mother and her father and support and love. She shouldn't have had to spend her life alone. It _wasn't_ fair, and tears of righteous anger pricked at Emma's eyes as she seethed over the injustice of it all.

It was once again Henry's little voice that brought her back to reality. "Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you having fun today?"

Leave it to her son to bring her out of her morose mental wanderings. She blinked back her tears before looking over at him, surprised. "Of course I am."

"Good," he said with a smile, "because I am, too."

Snow's shout of victory drew their attention over to the site of the friendly shootout. It appeared as though Snow had won, although Emma didn't have the slightest clue how they'd been scoring it. "It looks like they're having fun, too," she said, nodding in their direction with a smirk.

"Of course they are," Henry said, his tone sage. "They're spending time with you. And me. They waited a long time to be able to do something like this."

_All right_, Emma thought, _where in the hell did this kid come from? _How did he get to be so wise beyond his years? He didn't get it from her, and he most certainly didn't get it from his father. But there he was, her wonderful eleven-year-old son, looking up at her with a tiny, comforting smile on his face. He was growing up much too fast for her, and not for the first time, she regretted those ten years she'd missed. "We've all been waiting a long time, haven't we?" she murmured.

Henry gave her a nod before wrapping his arms around her in a hug. She hugged him back, holding him tightly for a long moment. "All right, kid, we're veering into mushy now."

"And you don't do mushy," Henry laughed, pulling out of her grip.

"No, I do not," Emma confirmed, but she was smiling.

At that point, she heard David demand a rematch. She glanced over at him, and her father, sad to say, still looked a little ridiculous shooting Henry's bow.

"I don't know, Mom," Henry said, a sly little grin turning up the corners of his mouth as he took in the contented expression on her face as she watched her parents. "I think maybe you could get used to mushy, too."

Emma wrinkled her nose. "Oh, kid, I will _never_ get used to mushy."

"You say that now," was all Henry said before facing forward, returning his attention to his grandparents.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** Well, it's been a very rainy Labor Day Weekend in my neck of the woods, which means I've had plenty of time for writing. I promise I'll get back to the silly fluffiness soon, but I've had a few comments asking for something similar to what you see below, and after the previous chapter, I decided it was time. Hope you like!

* * *

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Snow won the rematch, though Emma still hadn't figured out how they were scoring it. Not that it mattered; all of Snow's arrows were clustered in the yellow rings of the target. David's spanned yellow and red, and there was one lonely little arrow stuck in the outermost blue ring.

"Next time, I'm using a bow that's my size," David said, heaving a sigh.

Grinning, Henry pushed himself off the ground and marched back over to his grandfather. It appeared that he'd rested enough and was ready to take back his bow and resume shooting. Emma tried to follow him, but she couldn't seem to make herself get to her feet. Her arms were still sore, and she apparently wasn't as ready to get back at it as she'd thought.

_Just another couple of minutes_, she thought. All she needed was another couple of minutes.

David returned his grandson's bow with a smile. "Thank you for the use of your equipment, young Sir Henry."

"You're quite welcome, Your Majesty," Henry replied, choking back a giggle. It didn't take the kid long at all to reclaim his spot next to his grandmother.

Emma stared straight ahead, watching her mother as she and Henry both raised their bows. Even with her attention divided, one eye on her target and the other on her grandson to give further instruction if needed, Snow was shooting remarkably well. _I need to learn how to do that_, she thought, a little frown of consternation on her face.

She knew she just needed to be patient. As the saying went, Rome wasn't built in a day. One didn't become a master archer after shooting for forty-five minutes. She'd done well for her first time out, but she knew she still had a lot to learn. The only thing was, patience had never been Emma's strong suit.

She hadn't realized how long she'd been staring at them – or how longingly she'd been staring at them, slightly envious of the time Henry was getting to spend with an adult who cared – until David sat down next to her. What was it with guys and the ground? Did they not care that they were getting their clothes dirty?

"Are you all right?" he asked her, concern swimming in his eyes.

"Yeah," she replied, giving a little shrug. She hadn't taken her eyes off her mother, who was now laughing at something Henry had said, something Emma hadn't heard.

David followed her gaze. A smile tugged at his lips when Snow stopped shooting, stepped up behind Henry, and wrapped her arms around his to adjust his positioning. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Emma tense at the ease of their contact. When he looked back at her, he noticed that her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

He hesitated a moment before reaching for her hand. She allowed him to take it, though her focus was more on attempting to keep her emotions contained than it was on him. That all changed when he gave her hand a light squeeze. "It's okay to be angry, you know."

Emma shut her eyes for a brief moment and swallowed hard. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not," David argued softly. That finally made her tear her gaze from Snow and Henry and turn a surprised look on her father instead. Instinctively, she tried to pull her hand out of David's grasp but he held on tight. "You're angry, and it's okay. Hell, you _should_ be angry."

Emma's free hand clenched into a fist. She wasn't just angry; she was _livid_. She should have had this. She should have had lessons in the woods with her parents. She should have had people who loved her, people who cared. Instead, she'd spent her entire life alone, and now that she finally had people who loved her and people who cared, she had to fight with herself to even let them in.

More tears welled in her eyes, tears she did not want to fall here, in front of everyone. When her breath hitched in her throat, she knew she had to get up, to stop this discussion right here and right now, but David still had a tight hold on her and, at some point she couldn't determine, had begun running his thumb over the back of her hand.

"I know I'm angry," David continued. He flicked his eyes to Snow and Henry, who were still shooting, oblivious to the conversation going on behind them, before refocusing on his daughter. "To borrow a phrase from this realm, I'm pissed off. We missed everything. Your first words, your first steps, your first tooth falling out, your first day of school … _everything_. I'm furious that all that time was stolen from us, time we can never get back. And make no mistake, Emma, it was stolen from us. The curse stole a lot of things from a lot of people but what it stole from us … it was priceless and irreplaceable."

For a brief moment, Emma couldn't breathe. She wanted to tell David to stop, that it was too much, that she wasn't ready. What came out instead proved that the lonely little girl had wrested control from the independent adult. "It's not fair."

She winced at how … _child-like_ she sounded. She longed to wrap her hand around something, preferably glass, and pitch it as hard as she could against something that would shatter it. Unfortunately, the only items within her grasp were pine needles. The absence of an appropriate-for-Emma release was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, and her tears finally spilled over.

"It's not _fair_," she repeated, her voice filled with anguish.

The instant she brought her hands up to cover her face, David wrapped his arms around her. He murmured into her ear, telling her that it was okay and to let it out. Stirring deep within her was the independent adult who was rather embarrassed by and extremely uncomfortable with this entire display. It was the little girl who kept her stationary, the lonely little girl who'd waited years for her daddy to hold her and make things right.

Despite her swirling emotions, she still didn't let go completely, still didn't allow herself the release she so desperately needed. Not until a second set of arms wrapped around her from the other side. Emma knew in an instant who it was, and the floodgate finally broke loose.

For a long moment, she indulged the tears with her mother on one side and her father on the other. She could hear them sniffling, too, crying for all they'd lost. A hand was rubbing circles on her back, and she thought it might be her father's.

Though the little girl wanted desperately to hold onto the comfort, the independent adult finally managed to put her back in her place. Emma shifted in her parents' grip, spurring them to release their hold. When she brought her hands down from her face, Snow cupped her cheek in her palm and gave her a little smile before moving out of her daughter's personal space.

"Thanks," she murmured uncomfortably, keeping her gaze averted from both parents.

"You're very welcome, sweetheart," David replied, just as softly.

The pet name almost set her off again but a deep breath and a lot of willpower allowed her to remain in control. She looked up and saw Henry standing in front of her, his own eyes watery but unsure of whether or not he should go in for the hug as well. "Come here, kid," she said, sniffing back the last of her tears.

He ran at her and hugged her tightly. She held onto him just as tightly, resting her cheek on the top of his head until he let go.

"I think that's enough archery for today, hmm?" Snow spoke up softly, her eyes focused solely on her daughter.

Emma could only give her a grateful nod as she got to her feet. The emotional release, though clearly needed, had exhausted her.

Snow smiled, handed the bow and quiver to her daughter, and walked over to dismantle the targets. Emma smiled back, albeit a little belatedly, as she hooked the quiver over her shoulder. Henry joined his grandmother, once again leaving David to carry his bow.

For a brief moment, there was an awkward silence between father and daughter. Then Emma teasingly said, "You still look ridiculous."

Relief flooded David's features as he realized that he hadn't angered his daughter by forcing her buried emotion to the surface. Much to Emma's own relief, he joked right along with her. "I'm thinking I should make it part of my deputy uniform. What do you think?" He hooked the quiver over his shoulder and assumed a Robin Hood-type pose. "It commands authority, right?"

Emma snorted in amusement. "No."

"You don't think so?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Damn," he said, dropping the pose while giving her a wink.

With the targets now dismantled, Snow and Henry began leading the walk back to the car. Emma walked next to her father in silence for a few paces, then said, "What I said before still stands, you know. I wouldn't mind some pointers on the sword. Maybe this afternoon, after we get something to eat?"

A touched smile lit David's face. He'd clearly been assuming that the plan for the sword fighting lesson had been canceled for the same reasons the archery lesson had ended early. "I'd like that very much."

Emma smiled back at him.

If anything, this little breakdown of hers had taught her not to lose any more time with her parents. They'd lost enough time together as it was, and the sword thing was something her father desperately wanted. Truth be told, it was something she desperately wanted, too. So she would suck up the muscles aches and the exhaustion – both physical and emotional – and she would let Prince Charming work with her on her technique with a sword.

David walked down the path with her, side by side, until Henry began dragging the bale of hay more than he was carrying it. It seemed that he, too, was tired from all the activity. "Hey, Henry," David called. Henry stopped on the path and turned around to face his grandfather. "I'll switch with you."

A relieved smile curled on Henry's lips at his grandfather's offer. He eagerly handed over the bale while taking back his bow and quiver. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," he said, lifting the bale.

The swap also resulted in a switching of walking companions, as David hurried to catch up with Snow and Henry hung back with Emma. She kept half an eye on her parents, trying to determine if they were okay after … everything. Attempting to come to terms with the time they'd missed wasn't easy on them, either.

They were carrying on a hushed conversation, but Emma thought they looked like they were all right. As all right as they could be, at any rate.

It was Henry who broke the long moment of silence. "I thought you said you don't do mushy," he said cheekily, a wry smile on his face. "Because I've got to tell you, letting your parents hug you like that and then hugging me? Kind of mushy."

"That was a one-time thing," she told him, trying her hardest to sound dismissive.

"That's what they all say," he replied, his voice just this side of singsong.

Emma could only heave a sigh and wish she had something soft to playfully throw at him.


	8. Chapter 8

The drive out of the woods was made in silence. For his part, David was staring out the window and watching the trees pass by as Snow piloted the car down the bumpy dirt road.

Seeing his baby girl so hurt and angry had practically killed him. He'd pushed her, and he knew he deserved the pain and guilt that resulted from that push, but Emma … Emma didn't deserve any of it. She'd needed the release – they'd _all_ needed the release – that much was certain. But the push … had he been too harsh? Maybe he should have just let it come in Emma's own time.

He'd once cautioned Snow against pushing her, and here he was, doing the exact same thing he'd told her not to do.

As Snow maneuvered the station wagon out of the trees and onto the paved road from the dirt one, David glanced over his shoulder to check on the passengers in the back seat. A soft smile formed on his lips at what he saw. "Well, that didn't take long," he murmured as he faced forward again.

Snow glanced up in the rear view mirror and smiled as well. Apparently, Henry had decided to use the drive time as nap time, because he'd curled up as much as he could on the seat and closed his eyes. As for Emma, the emotional release must have been too much for her because she, too, was dozing. It didn't appear that her nap was as conscious of a decision for her as it was for her son, though. She couldn't keep her eyes open but she kept jerking awake every time her head dropped forward.

"That didn't take long at all," she agreed just as softly, returning her attention to the road.

David eyed his wife carefully, trying to determine how well she was handling the events of the morning. They'd both tried so hard to be strong for their daughter that they really hadn't had the chance to deal with it themselves. He knew that he'd wanted to scream from the injustice of it all but comforting Emma had come first. Snow had to have felt the same way.

In the end, he opted for open communication rather than trying to guess. "How are you doing?" he asked, still keeping his voice soft so as not to disturb the napping passengers behind him.

Snow flicked her gaze up to the rear view once again. David knew in an instant what she was doing: making sure that Emma was asleep enough that she wouldn't hear what Snow was about to say. "I've never seen her like that. I've seen her angry plenty of times, and I've seen her upset. But I've _never_ seen her like that. It made me sick to my stomach. We did that to her, Charming. We did that to our little girl."

"No," David insisted, his voice quiet but forceful. "No, Snow, _we_ did not do that to her. The curse did that to her. We had no choice–"

"Didn't we? It seems to me like we had plenty of choices. We could have–"

"What, let her be cursed alongside us? Let her spend the rest of eternity as a squalling newborn? She would have been without us anyway. We wouldn't have been together, Snow; the curse would have seen to that. And that's the best case scenario! Do you really believe Regina would have let her live? Because I don't. She was coming to the castle that night for the baby, to make sure the savior had no chance of fulfilling her role."

Snow was quiet for a long moment, blinking back tears. "You're right," she said eventually, sniffling. "Regina was coming that night to kill her. I know in my heart that she was. That's a good part of the reason I decided we should send her through in the first place. And if I had it to do over again, I'd make the same choice. Getting her to safety was paramount. All that being said, it doesn't mean I have to be okay with it."

"No," David softly agreed, "it most certainly doesn't." He would probably never make his peace with their decision, either, even though he, too, would do whatever it took to save his daughter from Regina's clutches.

"It sucks hardcore ass," a groggy voice added from the back seat. Either Emma was more awake than she'd appeared or she'd woken herself up in time to hear the tail-end of their conversation. David hoped it was Option B.

And just like that, the morose mood in the car was lifted. David snickered while Snow merely gave an indulgent shake of her head at her daughter's way with words.

"Well, it does," Emma muttered as she shifted in the seat, a blatant attempt at keeping herself awake. When she learned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, David just barely resisted the urge to ruffle her hair. She'd made tremendous strides over recent weeks in allowing them to actually be her parents in various little ways, but he had a funny feeling that ruffling her hair would have been a bit too much for her.

"You're absolutely correct," he said instead, smiling kindly at her.

They let the moment linger. Just as the silence was about to become awkward, Emma asked, "So what's the plan now?"

"We have to return the hay to the stables–" Snow started.

"You know, I'm surprised they haven't just let you keep the hay by now," Emma interrupted, smirking at the back of her mother's head. "You only swing by to get two bales of hay, what, every other day?"

"They would have no problem letting me keep it," Snow told her, returning the smirk. "It's more the fact that I have no place to store it. Unless you'd like me to put it up in the loft."

Emma wrinkled her nose. "Um, no thanks. There's barely enough room up there for Henry and me as it is."

"So, like I said, we have to return the hay to the stables. After that, I figure we can stop at Granny's for lunch, if you and Henry are up for it."

David hid a smirk at the excitement that lit his daughter's eyes at the mention of food. Still, she made her answer sound nonchalant and even gave a halfhearted shrug for added benefit. "Yeah, sure. I'm kind of craving grilled cheese."

"You? Craving grilled cheese?" David teased, giving Emma a wink. "I am shocked and amazed."

"You shush," she said, wrinkling her nose at her father. Then she returned her attention to her mother. "Um, at some point this afternoon, David and I planned to have a sword fighting lesson."

Snow raised her eyebrows in surprise but then sudden understanding flooded her features. In an instant, David knew she'd figured out that _that_ was the miracle that had happened on the path in the woods prior to the archery lesson.

"Since we're going to be playing with swords, I'd bet my next two paychecks that Henry's going to want to come with us," Emma continued, her tone becoming slightly hesitant. "You're more than welcome to come, too, if you want."

"I would love to come with you, Emma," Snow replied, clearly touched that Emma had asked.

Emma smiled before catching her father's eye and frowning at him. "Wait a sec. I'm not going to have to learn with the kid's wooden swords, am I?"

David chuckled. "No. You killed a dragon, remember? I think we can conduct our lesson with real swords."

"You have another one?"

"No, but I will by this afternoon." When she raised her eyebrows at him, he just grinned. "I have _resources_."

"Apparently."

Snow snickered at the back-and-forth between father and daughter. Eventually, Emma leaned back in the seat, sitting correctly. When she turned her head to look out the window, David faced forward in his own seat.

Again, the family sat in silence. It was Emma who broke it with a quiet scoff. "I was just thinking," she said, her voice soft and holding a mixture of sarcasm and wonder, "this morning I was an archer and this afternoon, I'm going to be a swashbuckler. And this is after coming back from the Enchanted Forest where I saw and did all kinds of nutty things that I'd only ever read about. I want to know when the hell I got dropped into an adventure movie."

David and Snow exchanged a grin. "Round about the time a ten-year-old boy showed up on your doorstep in Boston, I imagine," Snow answered gently with a glance up in the rear view mirror.

Emma looked over at her sleeping son, a tender smile on her face. "Yeah, I guess so."

Once again, silence settled over the car. And once again, when they were about a minute away from the stables, it was Emma who broke it. "You know, if it got me all this, maybe being dropped into an adventure movie isn't so bad."

Snow and David exchanged a touched look. When David reached across the front seat for his wife's hand, out of Emma's line of sight, she complied. She squeezed his hand tightly and tried to keep the emotion out of her voice when she addressed her daughter. "No, maybe it's not."


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** Just because I feel like I haven't said it in a while: you guys are awesome. :)

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In yet another turn of events that provided no surprise whatsoever, Henry did indeed want to tag along on the father/daughter sword-fighting lesson. When Emma had woken him a minute or so from Granny's and filled him in on the plans for the afternoon, he'd said, "Are you kidding? I'm totally going with you. You're going to be playing with swords!"

After everyone had choked back laughter, David had gently reminded Henry that they would not be _playing_ with swords and that real swords were not toys. "I know," Henry assured him with a nod, "but watching you guys practice is still going to be really fun."

Lunch at Granny's consisted of grilled cheese sandwiches for Henry and Emma, a turkey sandwich for Snow, a chicken salad sandwich for David, and French fries for everyone. Granny had smiled at Henry's enthusiasm over the sword lessons and had offered to give Emma pointers if she ever wanted to learn how to use a crossbow. Smiling, Emma had told her she'd keep that in mind.

After lunch, the family headed back to the apartment to prepare for the next stage of their day. Henry wanted to grab his wooden swords, while Snow wanted to pack a tote with snacks and bottles of water since it appeared they were going to be out for a while. With his family getting ready, David slipped out to acquire a second sword for his daughter.

Emma wanted to follow him, just to see where the hell he was getting her a second sword, but Snow held her back. From the look on her mother's face, she gathered that wherever her father was going, it was something he needed to do alone.

He returned fifteen minutes later with a sheathed sword. Emma, who'd offered to wait upstairs for him while Snow and Henry went down to the car, held a breath as he handed it over to her. The heft of it surprised her a little. She unsheathed the sword and examined the blade for a long moment.

"For your first lesson," David said softly as he took the sword from her hand, "I'm going to show you proper grip. Your dominant hand goes here, right under the guard. Your non-dominant hand goes below, right above the pommel."

She took it back from him and tried to put her hands where his had been. "Like this?"

"Almost." He reached out to fix her grip but stopped and looked up at her instead, trying to determine if she would welcome his touch. She gave him a little nod and he rested her hands on his, shifting them on the hilt so they were where they should be. "Like that."

He let go, not wanting to make her uncomfortable, and she instantly missed the feeling of her father's hands on hers. Her breath caught in her throat as she lowered the weapon. Before she could get too wrapped up in the moment, though, she suddenly realized where he had procured this sword. "All right, what do you owe Gold?"

"What makes you think I got it from him?" he asked, noncommittal.

"There's no forge here," she said, the "duh" implied. "Swords don't just magically appear." At that, she paused, a little frown on her face. "Well, _you_ can't make a sword just magically appear. Since this is most definitely a real weapon and not a prop of some kind, Gold's your only option. What was his price for this?"

"Don't worry about it," he shrugged as he began to turn away.

Oh, no, he wasn't getting off that easily. Emma reached out and grabbed his hand, tugging him to a stop. "No. What do you owe him?"

David met her eyes with a sad smile. "I don't owe him anything. I simply made him understand that he, in point of fact, owed me. It was his curse that took you away from us. Though a sword is not nearly enough restitution for the time we missed with you, I managed to talk him into it. That, and this."

He pulled a wad of tissue paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it over to her. She frowned and when she almost hesitantly took it from him, she realized there was something in the wad. She set the sword down on the kitchen table and unwrapped the paper to find a delicate glass unicorn staring up at her.

She didn't understand, not until David spoke up, his voice soft and choked with emotion. "It was part of the mobile we had over your crib. You're a little old for the whole mobile now, but I thought ..."

"I love it," Emma said, meeting her father's eyes and giving him a watery smile. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied, smiling back at her. Then, to Emma's immense relief, he cleared his throat in an effort to shake off his emotions. "All right, now that we've got equipment and the first lesson is out of the way, where are the tag-alongs?"

"Downstairs," Emma answered, chuckling in equal parts amusement and relief, "packing the car."

David raised his eyebrows. "What needs to be packed?"

She shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. They said to come down when we were ready. I'm just going to go put this upstairs," she said, holding up the unicorn, "and then I think I'll be good to go."

"You want me to wait for you?"

"No, you don't have to," she smiled. She could tell he wanted to wait for her, most likely just to make sure that she was okay, but she needed a moment alone.

"All right, I'll meet you down there." David grabbed both her sword and his on the way to the door.

Emma smiled after him but as soon as the door clicked shut, she let out a heavy breath. The glass unicorn in her hand, yet another symbol of her parents' love for her and all the things she should have had, was almost too much.

Oh, who the hell was she kidding? It _was_ too much, and it took a few moments of steady, deliberate breathing to keep from losing control. Her meltdown this morning was more than enough for one day, thanks very much.

She climbed the stairs to the loft, set the unicorn on the dresser, and just stared at it for a long moment, trying not to think about all the what-ifs and the maybes. The sunshine streaming in through the window caught the unicorn in just the right way to send little arcs of colored light around the room. A tiny smile tugged at Emma's lips.

Almost at once, she realized that she was smiling at rainbows coming from a glass unicorn. _Seriously? _she thought, shaking her head at herself. Giving a little sigh, she headed back downstairs, locked the apartment door behind herself, and headed down to her waiting family.

"So," she said as she climbed into the car – back seat yet again – and buckled her seat belt, "where do we go to practice sword fighting?"

"The same place we go to practice shooting arrows," David said, giving her a teasing smirk over his shoulder.

"The soccer fields?" she whined, wrinkling her nose and making Snow and Henry giggle.

"No," David chuckled. "The woods."

"Of course," Emma sighed. "It's always the woods."

"The woods can teach you all kinds of things if you let them," Snow said, grinning up at her pretending-to-be-cranky daughter in the rear view mirror.

"Yeah, yeah," Emma grumbled, hiding a smile of her own.

Snow put the car into gear and took off for the woods. For a while, everyone was silent. Eventually, Henry turned to Emma, a little concerned frown knotting his brow. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," Emma assured him, even though her head was swimming. The past few hours had been a whirlwind of emotions and new experiences and spending time with her family. It was not at all what she was used to, and part of her was intensely uncomfortable with it. A larger part of her, though, recognized that this was something she'd wanted her entire life. She'd wanted her parents to teach her things and spend time with her and just … be a family.

And she shouldn't have had to wait twenty-nine years to be able to do it.

Still, when Henry smiled at her, apparently satisfied with her answer, she smiled back. "When you're having your lessons with Gramps," he whispered conspiratorially, "I'm going to be teaching Gramma some of the things he taught me."

"You are?" Emma asked, once again meeting her mother's gaze in the rear view. Snow winked at her, letting her know that she was pretending to know little to nothing about swords for Henry's benefit, and Emma fought to hide a smile. "So the student is going to teach his teacher, huh?"

"Yep!"

By the time they reached the woods, Henry was so excited he was practically bouncing up and down in his seat. Emma, on the other hand, was so nervous that her hands were shaking. Not that she understood why she was so nervous. It wasn't like she'd never wielded a sword before. Granted, her technique may not have been perfect, but it got the job done, and quite well, if she did say so herself.

Snow parked the car on the shoulder of a different access road than the one they were on earlier that morning. "What was wrong with where we were this morning?" Emma asked as everyone climbed out of the car.

"You're going to want a little more room to move than the shooting spot from this morning would have given you," Snow informed her. "There's a wider clearing somewhere around here, though I don't remember exactly where."

As the family walked headed down the path in search of the clearing, David and Henry walked ahead of Snow and Emma, carrying the swords, both metal and wooden. Emma smiled when she noticed Henry trying to copy the way his grandfather was holding the swords as they walked.

This time, it was Snow who broke the silence between them. "Are you doing all right?"

Emma frowned at her, wondering what made her ask that question. Only then did she realize that she'd been clenching her hands into fists and then releasing them in an effort to quell the trembling. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Snow looked like she wanted to say something more but must have changed her mind. Instead, she looked ahead of her, her eyes settling on her husband. "Do I want to know where he got the second sword?"

"Probably not," Emma replied. From the way Snow nodded, Emma suspected that she knew exactly where he'd gotten it. As such, she felt the need to add, "He didn't do anything stupid to get it, though, so don't worry about it."

"Good," she said through a heavy breath of relief.

Emma turned what she wanted to say next over in her head for a long moment. Would telling her mother about the unicorn just make things more emotionally charged? Probably, but Snow was going to find out anyway the second she walked upstairs, so she might as well tell her now. "He gave me a glass unicorn, too. Said it was part of my baby mobile?"

Snow stopped walking and blinked at her daughter in surprise. "Gold's had your mobile this whole time?"

"Apparently."

"That little imp!"

"That seems to be the go-to description of the guy," Emma smirked.

With that, Snow chuckled and resumed walking. She reached down for her daughter's hand, smiling gently when Emma allowed her to take it. "Well, it may be twenty-nine years too late, but at least you have it – or part of it – now."

Emma felt the telltale tickle of emotion in the back of her throat and swallowed hard. Damn it, she was not going to lose control again. Still, her voice was soft when she replied, "Twenty-nine years too late is better than never."


	10. Chapter 10

"You have to keep your feet separated, Emma," David said with far more patience than someone who'd repeated that exact same sentence four times in the span of about seven minutes should have been able to muster. "You won't be able to get proper leverage unless your feet are at least shoulder-width apart."

Emma grunted in exasperation, mostly with herself for constantly forgetting her footing. There was so much to think about, so much to try to keep straight in her head. As it turned out, her amateur experience with a sword was exactly that: amateur. Her grip was wrong, her footing was wrong, and the way she swung the sword was wrong.

In true father fashion, David had bristled at the term "wrong." Her technique wasn't _wrong_, he'd said. It had clearly worked for her well enough to slay a dragon and fight off zombies and pirates and evil witches. It just ... wasn't proper.

It didn't matter to Emma whether they deemed her technique wrong or improper or any other term along those lines. It all boiled down to the same thing: she had to relearn everything she'd taught herself. She had skated past frustrated a few minutes ago and was now barreling straight for angry and discouraged.

David must have been able to gather as much from her body language and facial expressions because his voice was apologetic when he instructed, "Loosen your arms up a little. You're going to get hurt once we start swinging if you're too tense."

"Ugh, forget it!" she cried, coming very close to throwing the sword down in aggravation. She obviously wasn't any good at the sword fighting thing if she couldn't even manage to get her stance right. No amount of trying to teach her the proper way to do it was going to make her good at it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Snow look up sharply at her cry, tearing her attention away from her "lesson" with Henry and glancing over in their direction. Emma winced but the embarrassment soon gave way to even more annoyance. Now both her mother and her son knew she was having trouble with the whole sword thing. Fantastic.

David sheathed his sword, approached his daughter, and gently rested his hands on her shoulders. "We're not going to forget it. You can do this, Emma; the history speaks for itself. You just need to calm down."

His touch took her by surprise but she was more surprised by the fact that she hadn't shrugged his hands away. "Easier said than done," she grumbled.

"Deep, slow breaths. I'll count it again if you want."

Emma shook her head. No, she didn't need him to count it again. Even though she'd been relegated to the back seat of the car all day long, she wasn't six years old. Instead she silently counted herself, just as David had done earlier. In, two, three. Out, two, three, four.

A couple of deliberate breaths later, the tension in Emma's shoulders relaxed. With a kind smile, David gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze and removed his hands. Once again, Emma was surprised to find that she missed the warmth of his hands and the comfort it gave her. "You all right now?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied, giving a curt nod, because in all honesty, the way the encouragement and little touches he'd been giving her all day made her feel was so damn confusing. It felt like part of her was railing against it, against the comfort and the love because she didn't know how to handle it. But there was another part of her that had waited twenty-nine long and lonely years for it and welcomed it now that she was getting it, and that part of her was starting to overshadow the other part.

She had no idea whether or not she liked this development.

Emma shook her head slightly as if to clear it. There would be time for rumination later. Right now, she had to learn how to properly use a sword. "Yeah, I'm good now. Let's go."

David smiled at her and stepped back a couple of paces, resuming his previous position. He unsheathed his sword and got back down to business. "All right, hands on the hilt where I showed you, feet shoulder-width apart." He waited until she resumed her stance as well before continuing. "Now, keeping the blade pointed at the sky, bring the sword down in front of you so that the pommel is in line with your belly button."

Emma lowered her arms, bringing the sword down towards her stomach. "Like this?"

"Almost. Keep your arms a little further away from your body." He demonstrated the stance with his own weapon. "This is a block – known as a parry – and it won't help much if the thrust of the other sword pushes the pommel of yours into your stomach."

She nodded and tried to copy his stance. She couldn't help but feel that hers was awkward and stiff whereas his was fluid and natural. "I feel ridiculous," she sighed, dropping the stance.

Seeing that Emma was entirely out of her element and David was scrambling for a way to get her back on track, Snow excused herself from her lesson with Henry. She walked over to her husband and daughter and gently instructed, "Emma, hold the sword you way you held it in the Forest."

Emma flicked her eyes to her father, who gave her a nod. Even though she didn't have the slightest clue what difference it would make, she shifted the sword in her hand and held it in a way that felt more natural to her. Sudden understanding flooded David's features, and when he met his wife's eyes, she simply smiled at him.

_All right, what the hell?_ Emma thought. Her eyes darted back and forth between her mother and father. Nothing further was said, though, and Snow eventually turned away and walked back over to Henry. Emma arched a single questioning eyebrow at her father, who smiled at her. "What the hell is going on?" she asked once it became apparent that neither he nor Snow was going to tell her anything.

"What's going on," David said softly, "is that I'm going to teach you your way."

"I thought my way was improper."

"It is, but we're going to make it proper."

Now she was completely confused. "Weren't we doing that before?"

"No."

She didn't understand, not until David stepped forward and met her eyes, once again silently asking if he could adjust her grip. She nodded and his hands covered hers, shifting them slightly on the hilt. When he let go, she immediately noticed that the grip still felt natural, a lot more natural than she grip he'd shown her earlier. She couldn't even tell what was different except that it just felt … right. "Is that better?" he asked her, smiling.

"Yeah," she replied, a little smile curling on her lips despite herself. "Yeah, that's much better."

Now she understood what he'd meant. Rather than trying to teach her as if they were starting from scratch, he'd decided, with his wife's help, to simply adapt what she'd taught herself so she would have more control over the weapon.

"Good. You still have to keep your feet shoulder-width apart, though," he teased.

The joke broke the tension completely, and Emma finally chuckled. "Happy now?" she asked as she corrected her footing.

"Yes indeed. Now, let's try that parry again, shall we?"

Over on the other side of the clearing, Snow was pleased to see that it looked like Emma was having an easier time now that she wasn't as frustrated and didn't feel as awkward. She even looked like she was having some fun fending off her father's – gentle, of course – attacks.

Only after Henry almost knocked the wooden sword from her hand did she return her full attention to her grandson. "You can give it up, Gramma," he said through a sigh. "I know you're only pretending not to know what you're doing."

"What?" she asked, blinking innocently at him. "Of course you're teaching me."

He gave her a look she had seen many times on Emma's face, one that plainly said to cut the crap. Ah, the things her daughter was teaching the boy. Snow might have to have a little chat with Emma on that very subject. "You're doing it perfectly and you're not even really paying attention," Henry told her. "Plus, I read the book, you know?"

At that, she lowered her sword and gave him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, Henry. It's just that you were so excited that I didn't have the heart to tell you I already knew."

"It's okay," he assured her, the calm smile on his face morphing into a mischievous grin. "That just means I don't have to go easy on you anymore."

"You shouldn't have been going easy on me in the first place," she laughed, raising the sword in challenge to her grandson.

As they sparred, she couldn't help but note that the boy seemed to have paid as much attention to the fencing lessons with his grandfather as he had to the archery lessons with her. His footwork needed a little smoothing out and his thrusts needed a bit of fine-tuning, but he was starting to look very much like a miniature Charming with the sword in his hand.

He swung his sword down hard on hers, once again trying to knock it out of her hand. She was impressed with the force he'd used. "Whoa, that was a good one!"

"Really?" he asked, pausing in place and practically beaming.

As soon as he stopped, she saw an opportunity to teach him something of her own. "Yes," she replied before bringing her sword down on his and knocking it to the ground.

"Hey!" he cried.

"Allow me to teach you a lesson of my own," she smirked. "Never let your guard down."

"Got it," he laughed as he bent down to pick up his sword.

All of a sudden, a shout of pain rang through the clearing. Snow instantly recognized the cry as her daughter's. Her heart skipped a beat and then pounded in her chest as she and Henry both spun in the direction of the sound.

Emma was cradling her right arm in her left, the sword lying forgotten at her feet. As they hurried over to her, David was attempting to coax her into letting him examine the injury. "Let me see," he was murmuring when they approached.

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain as he lightly touched her arm. "Emma, you've got to let me see it."

"It's fine," she said, then hissed in pain when he gently took her hand in his.

"That's not fine, Emma," he said in what was probably the understatement of the day. He slowly and carefully straightened her arm, keeping a close watch on her facial expression as he did so to make sure he wasn't hurting her.

"What happened?" Snow asked. Henry's hand reached for hers and she gripped it tightly, giving the boy comfort.

"She locked her elbow when she completed her thrust."

"Still standing here," Emma spoke up, a little annoyed that David hadn't let her answer the question on her own.

"Sorry," David replied, giving her a half-smile. He'd managed to straighten her arm out and now he was tenderly testing her range of motion. "Tell me when it hurts, and don't be your usual stubborn self."

Emma watched as her father held her hand and slowly turned her arm. "So far it's – ow, right there!"

David met Snow's eyes and gave her a tiny, reassuring nod. "Good news is, it's not broken. You did wrench it pretty badly, though."

He let her hand go and she tested her range of motion herself. Though she winced at the same spot she had when her father turned her arm, it didn't hurt nearly as much this time. "It's fine. I want to continue."

"Emma–"

She heaved an exasperated sigh. "I promise I'll stop if it hurts. Can we please just continue?"

Once again, Snow and David exchanged a glance. This time it was Snow who gave David a nod, silently telling him to continue the lesson if that was what Emma wanted. David then turned a smile on his daughter, giving the hand of her injured arm a light squeeze. His voice was soft as he said, "That's my girl."

And once again, Emma smiled despite herself.


	11. Chapter 11

A concerned mother's watchful eye missed nothing. It took approximately thirty seconds for Snow to notice that Emma was favoring her injured arm. Judging by the hesitant look on Charming's face, it appeared that a concerned father's watchful eye didn't miss anything, either. Still, Emma had promised she would stop if her arm hurt, so they both let the lesson continue.

Snow was prepared to stop them, though, just in case Emma decided to follow pattern and be stubborn beyond belief.

For a few minutes, the only sounds in the clearing were the clanging of swords, metal and wooden, and gentle instruction from both Snow White and Prince Charming. "Gramma," Henry spoke up, unceremoniously lowering his wooden sword, "I'm kind of getting hungry."

Yet another thing that came as no surprise whatsoever. An eleven-year-old boy claiming he was hungry was as natural as the stars in the sky, and practicing weapons all day long surely worked up an appetite. Hence the reason Snow had wanted to bring a few snacks along in the first place. "There are snacks in your backpack," she reminded him.

He grinned at her in gratitude before taking off for his bag, which they'd left at the edge of the clearing closest to them. Halfway there, he must have remembered his manners because he froze in his tracks, turned around, and asked, "Do you want anything?"

"No, thank you," she replied, swallowing a chuckle.

"I'll take a water, if you're offering them, kid," Emma called over her shoulder. Charming held his sword out for a parry, and she brought her sword down on her father's. Snow noticed immediately that she was still favoring her right arm.

Charming locked eyes with Snow, and the two of them shared a brief moment of concern. And though Snow wanted to stop her, Charming still thought they should let Emma make the decision. Snow nodded, telling her husband to follow his instincts, and Charming returned his attention to Emma, demonstrating with his own weapon how to hold it to complete the thrust more fluidly.

Henry dug out his snack – a plastic baggie filled with some sort of "trail mix" Emma had made that morning before breakfast that consisted mostly of M&Ms with some pretzels and peanuts thrown in to give it an air of legitimacy – and a bottle of water for his mother. He handed her the water before running back over to Snow. "You're sure you don't want anything?" he asked as he stuck his hand into the baggie.

Snow sighed. She counted all of two pretzels and three peanuts halves in that bag. That would be the last time Emma was in charge of making trail mix. "No thank you."

"All right," Henry shrugged, popping the candy into his mouth.

Both Snow and Henry jerked their heads in the direction of the sounds when they heard the unmistakable clang of a sword clattering to the ground followed by a muttered curse. Emma had once again dropped the sword, and from the slightly panicked expression on Charming's face, Snow gathered he hadn't knocked it out of her hand.

He hurriedly sheathed his sword and stepped closer to his daughter. When Emma bent down to pick up her weapon, he stepped on it, preventing her from lifting it off the ground. "You said you would stop if your arm hurt."

"It doesn't," she huffed, aggravation flashing in her eyes as she straightened and glared at her father.

Charming held strong in the face of his daughter's annoyance. "You dropped the sword because you tried to stop favoring your arm, Emma."

When Emma didn't say anything right away in protest, Snow knew that Charming had hit the nail on the head. "All right," she spoke up softly as she approached her husband and daughter, "I think we're done for today."

"I'm fine!"

"You're obviously not. I think we might have to have someone take a look at your arm–"

"It's not broken," Emma interrupted, trying her hardest not to whine or roll her eyes.

"It could be a hairline fracture or–"

"No, I mean I know it's not broken. I've broken my arm before, and yeah, this hurts, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did when I broke it."

Snow and Charming exchanged a pained glance. They were keenly aware of how much of her life they'd missed, but finding out that their baby had broken a bone and they hadn't been there to protect her or comfort her was gut-wrenching. An injured child wanting her parents was as natural as eleven-year-old boys being hungry. Poor Emma hadn't had her parents, and she should have.

She really, truly should have.

Oblivious to the adults' discomfort, Henry asked, "How'd you break your arm, Mom?" Only after the words fell from his lips did he catch the pain on his grandparents' faces and the hesitance on his mother's. He held the bag of M&Ms out to Emma, as if to offer her comfort via candy.

Emma heaved a sigh as she reached into the bag for a handful of candy. It was quite obvious that she had no desire to tell this story, which made Snow's heart leap into her throat. Emma hadn't gone into great detail about her past back when Snow was Mary Margaret, but she'd told her enough that Snow could read between the lines. All she hoped was that Emma's broken arm had been the result of a childhood accident and not something someone had done on purpose.

She let out a breath of relief when Emma said, "I fell off a swing set." It _had _been a simple childhood accident, thank the gods.

"This other girl and I used to sit on top of the monkey bars," Emma continued. "I don't even remember how we used to get up there. One day I decided to try to be a daredevil and see if I could stand up. It would have been fine if the swing set was anchored correctly but it wasn't, so when kids were on the swings, the whole structure would lift up a little bit and thunk back down from the force. One of the other kids started swinging high enough to make the swing set lift just as I tried to stand. I lost my balance and fell. Your first instinct when you're falling is to put your arms out to break your fall, and well, it broke my fall, all right. Broke my ulna, too."

That was all of the story Snow had expected to hear. Truthfully, it was more than plenty. But to everyone's surprise, Emma kept talking. "My foster parents had gone out without telling any of us, so they weren't even home when I fell. It was another couple of hours before they came home. By the time I got to the doctor's office, my arm was throbbing and it had puffed up like a balloon. It was obvious that the injury was a few hours old, so the doctor asked me how long ago I'd done it, and I told him. Which was the exact wrong thing to do, I guess, because I got punished when we got back to the house."

Snow and Charming exchanged another glance. Their poor baby. Although Snow desperately wanted to know what, exactly, that punishment entailed, part of her hoped Emma wouldn't tell them. The guilt was too much as it was. "Why?" Henry asked softly, a little confused frown on his face.

Charming had stepped closer to everyone as Emma was talking, closing ranks to create a small circle. Snow searched for his hand without taking her eyes off her baby girl. He gripped her hand and squeezed, giving her as much comfort as he possibly could.

"I drew attention to them. My foster parents, I mean," Emma shrugged. The matter-of-fact way she spoke of it, as if a child being punished for the adults' negligence was normal, was far too telling for Snow's comfort. "After that, there were extra home visits and inspections and just … extra attention. They didn't take too kindly to that."

"How old were you?" Charming breathed.

"Ten." And all of a sudden, it was like a spell was broken. Emma blinked hard, as if just now realizing how much she'd said and to whom she'd said it. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to tell you all of that."

"No, Emma, it's okay," Snow assured her. She released her husband's hand and finally took Emma's instead. "Good or bad, we want to know, whenever you're ready to tell us. We want to know how you became the woman you are today. And we're the ones who should be sorry."

"No, you shouldn't," Emma replied softly, squeezing Snow's hand back. "I know you sent me through the wardrobe to save me. It's not your fault some people in this world suck. And even if there was no curse, I probably would have broken my arm climbing a tree or something." A wry smile formed on her lips. "I was kind of a rambunctious kid."

At that, everyone snickered, which was quite clearly Emma's intention. Snow gave her hand a final squeeze before releasing it. "You?" David asked her, his eyes sparkling with affection. "I don't believe it one bit."

Emma smiled. "Anyway, the point of all that was, I know my arm's not broken."

Snow returned her smile before instead turning a stern look on her daughter. "Regardless, you're in too much pain right now to continue." When Emma opened her mouth to argue, Snow shut her down with a shake of her head. "And if you keep practicing with an injured arm, you could very well end up breaking it. Practice is over for today; it's not up for discussion."

Emma arched an eyebrow at Snow. Was she actually pulling the mom card on her? "Fine, then."

And now that Snow had her daughter's attention, she couldn't help adding, "Also, the next time you make trail mix, more grains and protein and less candy. You might as well have packed candy bars for all the nutrition Henry's getting out of that." She nodded towards the bag of M&Ms in the boy's hands.

"I wanted to pack candy bars," Emma retorted, her tone teasing, "but I thought you might veto them."

"Ooh, which ones?" Henry spoke up, an excited little grin on his lips.

"Milky Way."

"You totally should have! That would have been awesome."

Charming just barely managed to turn his snicker into a cough. For her part, Snow shook her head and sighed.


	12. Chapter 12

A rather annoyed Emma trailed a few paces behind the rest of her family as they headed down the path back to the car. David had picked up her sword and brushed off the dead pine needles before Emma had the chance to do so herself. Snow had forbidden her from carrying a single thing out of the clearing, even Henry's mostly-empty backpack. All that remained in it were a couple of water battles and bags of trail mix, but Snow had deemed it too heavy for Emma to carry. So now here Emma was, trudging down the path empty-handed while her mother, father, and son carried everything.

Her arm wasn't _that_ hurt. Yeah, it was sore, but with a little ice and some elevation, it would be good as new.

Of course, Snow had cited the fact that Emma had broken her promise that she would stop the lesson if her arm hurt as the main reason for not letting her do anything. "If you're not going to take care of yourself, I'll have to make sure you do," she'd said. But the real reason Emma hadn't stopped the lesson was because she simply hadn't wanted to stop. Once she'd gotten past her intense aggravation – and, yes, relaxed – she'd actually found clanging swords with her father quite fun. Just like the archery, now that she thought about it. And just like with the archery, there was no way she would admit that in front of _anyone_.

Ahead of her on the trail, Snow glanced over her shoulder. She paused, allowing Emma to catch up with her. At first, Emma thought she was simply going to keep her company, but that hope was shattered the second she noticed that Snow was frowning down at her injured arm. She was silent for a moment and then murmured almost under her breath, "I think I want to wrap that when we get home."

"Oh my God!" Emma grumbled, sounding more like an exasperated teenager than she was entirely comfortable with. "It's fine!"

"It's starting to swell, Emma," Snow informed her, her voice gentle yet stern.

Emma stopped walking and held both arms out in front of her, side by side. Well, dammit. Her mother was right. _Still_, she thought with a silent huff. Her arm didn't need to be _wrapped_. She'd just take an anti-inflammatory when she got home, and the swelling would go down.

Not that she was about to argue with Snow. Something about the set of her mother's shoulders told her she wouldn't win. When the silence stretched out, Snow let out a mildly exasperated sigh of her own. "Will you please just humor me?"

It was only then that Emma truly saw the concern swimming in her mother's eyes. The notion of being on the receiving end of parental concern was still so foreign to Emma that it took her an almost embarrassing amount of time to recognize it. After all, if Henry were the one who was hurt, Emma would be reacting in pretty much the same way Snow was. Softening, Emma gave her mother a silent nod.

Snow let out a breath of relief. "Thank you," she said, lightly grasping her daughter's uninjured hand.

Emma gave her mother the tiniest of smiles while squeezing her hand back. All right, the hovering mom thing was obnoxious, but there was a part of her that was secretly thrilled that she had a mom to hover. A small, tiny part that tried its hardest to make itself heard over the independent part of her who didn't need anybody at all. And Emma was rather annoyed to find that the small, tiny part was succeeding more often than it was failing.

Snow smiled back and then, since she knew that harping on it would only succeed in driving Emma even more up the wall, let her hand go. Still, she continued to walk down the path with her, side by side, letting her presence be comfort enough.

A minute or so later, Henry looked over his shoulder and smiled at mother and daughter. Just as Snow had, he paused and waited for them to catch up with him. Taking note of the fact that Emma had crossed her arms over her chest, supporting her right arm with her left, he asked, "It doesn't hurt too badly, does it?"

It had actually started to throb, hence the attempt at elevation, but Emma had a reputation to uphold. She didn't even want to imagine the fuss Snow would put up if she mentioned the throbbing. "Nah," she replied, giving Henry a small smile. "I am kind of disappointed that I'm not going to have a battle scar like your first weapon injury, though."

Henry beamed while glancing down at the small scar along his left index finger. The fletching of an arrow had sliced his finger the first time Snow took him shooting. After getting over the initial pain, he'd been thrilled to have a war wound. Thankfully, that one small injury had been his only injury thus far, or Emma would more than likely have been rivaling Snow in the annoying parental concern department.

At last, Snow's car became visible through the trees. Before handing off the wooden swords to his grandfather to put in the back of the station wagon, Henry opened Emma's door for her. The sweet, caring gesture warmed her heart; she had the most awesome son ever. "Thank you," she said, smiling in gratitude, but the smile faltered a tad when she caught David winking at the kid and Henry winking back.

Of course it had been David's idea. And of course he told Henry to do it, since he was the only one of the three who could get away with it. Sighing to herself, Emma climbed into the car and reached her left arm across her body to pull the door closed before anyone could close it for her.

The very fact that she'd used her left arm sent Snow's concern into overdrive. She settled behind the wheel and dropped Henry's backpack over the seat and onto the floor behind her. Then she frowned at her daughter. "Emma, I really think we should have Dr. Whale take a look at your arm."

"It's fine," Emma insisted for what was probably the seven thousandth time.

"You just used your left arm to close the door."

"You're the one who didn't want me using my hurt arm in the first place!"

Henry swallowed a snicker as he climbed into the back seat next to his mother. For her part, Snow seemed to ignore Emma's point entirely. "I still think we should get it checked out."

No, they were not getting it checked out. The thought going to the hospital and waiting to be seen while everyone fussed over her all for Dr. Whale to tell her to ice her injury and take some ibuprofen was not exactly a pleasant one. "Well, I don't, and since it's my arm, I get the deciding vote," Emma grumbled. "I really just want to go home and take some Advil or something."

Snow exchanged a glance with her husband, who was finally settling himself in the passenger seat after storing the swords in the back of the station wagon. He gave her a tiny shrug, a silent way of telling her that they couldn't force a visit to the hospital on Emma, no matter how much they might want to.

Eventually, Snow gave an exasperated sigh. "Fine, we won't go to Dr. Whale. But in exchange, I am wrapping that arm and giving you a care plan that you will follow to the letter."

Emma raised her eyebrows in disbelief. She was an adult, for crying out loud! An adult who, for the first twenty-eight years of her life, had taken care of herself quite nicely, and she could still do so now, thank you very much.

"It's either that or I drive you to the hospital right now," Snow continued, her tone brooking no dissent. "Take your pick."

A wave of white-hot anger rushed over Emma. What the hell right to Snow have to offer her that kind of freakin' ultimatum? Once again, Emma was an adult. She could certainly make her own choices, and if she didn't want to go to the damn doctor, she didn't have to.

But then, with a rush of sudden understanding, Emma realized that Snow had every right. She was Emma's mother. She was a mother whose baby was hurt. Had Henry been the one refusing medical attention, Emma would certainly have pitched the same kind of fit as Snow just had. Hell, Snow hadn't even had to offer her a choice. She could have just driven her to the hospital without even telling her. "Fine," she muttered, making sure to sound all kinds of put out, "I'll do what you tell me to do."

"_Thank_ you," Snow breathed. She turned around in the seat before turning the key in the ignition and piloting the station wagon down the access road.

After a moment of tense silence, Henry reached for the backpack at his feet. After pulling out a bag of trail mix, he offered it to his mother as consolation. Emma gave her son a grateful half-smile, took the proffered bag, and eagerly reached into it for some chocolate comfort.

David, who'd caught the silent exchange in the side mirror, turned in his seat and looked over his shoulder at his daughter and grandson. "You plan on sharing some of that candy?"

"Trail mix," Emma teasingly corrected as she handed the bag over to her father.

"If you say so," he teased in return. He dug through the M&Ms and pulled out the five pretzels that had made it into that particular bag. Just before he zipped it closed to return to her, though, she saw him swipe a few M&Ms as well.

"Mom makes the best trail mix ever, doesn't she?" Henry asked, nodding in appreciation.

With a heavy sigh, Snow glanced up in the rear view mirror to address her grandson. "She gave you M&Ms, not trail mix." Though she sounded annoyed, Emma could see telltale signs of an indulgent smile around her eyes.

"Exactly! I never eat the rest of the stuff in trail mix anyway. Who wants pretzels or nuts? I just want the chocolate."

"The chocolate's totally the best part," Emma agreed before popping a few M&Ms into her mouth.

David snickered. "All right, there you might have a reasonable point."

"Oh, please don't encourage them," Snow groaned, trying and failing to swallow her own laughter.


	13. Chapter 13

"You're still not carrying anything into the apartment, Emma," David informed his daughter as she stepped up to the back of the station wagon. He was in the process of unloading everything from the family's day – and picking stray pieces of straw off the interior carpeting. The stuff got _everywhere_.

Emma narrowed her eyes at her father. He flicked his eyes to Snow, who was already at the entrance to the apartment. She shook her head at him before disappearing behind the door, intent on getting the first aid supplies ready for her ailing daughter. He let out an apologetic sigh as he refocused on Emma. "Sorry, kiddo. I think your mother might kill me if I give you anything to take upstairs."

Her breath hitched in her throat. The nickname, so close to the one she used for Henry, had slipped so naturally from her father's mouth that she didn't even think he realized he'd said it. The independent adult within her insisted that she was far too old to be called "kiddo." The little girl within her was jumping for joy.

Since this current rush of conflicting emotions was one confusion too many for one day, she dutifully ignored it. Instead, she arched a single eyebrow at her father. "You're more afraid of her than you are of me?"

"Absolutely," he answered without missing a beat, smiling at her almost apologetically.

Emma couldn't help the tiny smile that curled on her own lips. "Whatever," she teasingly grumbled. Then she turned on her heels to head upstairs, empty-handed through no fault of her own.

A suddenly serious David asked, "Emma?"

She turned around, frowning at her father. "What?"

"I'm sorry you got hurt," he said, his eyes searching hers. "I should have been watching you more closely."

"It's not your fault," she insisted, her voice gentle. "You must have told me a hundred times not to lock my elbow when I went to thrust. Now I know why." She shrugged, as if to say it wasn't a big deal, despite the fact that her arm was _throbbing_. "Lesson learned."

He gave her another smile, this one a combination of gratitude and relief. Had he thought she was angry with him? If so, she was sorry she'd given him that impression. Like she'd said, it wasn't his fault she'd gotten hurt. It wasn't even really her fault, either. It was an accident. These kinds of things happened when one was learning how to properly use a sword.

David was still looking at her with love and affection in his eyes, and Emma knew she needed to stop this little bit of interaction in its tracks, before it had a chance to become a _moment_. "Are you _sure_ I can't carry anything?"

"I'm sure," David chuckled. "Go on upstairs. I'm sure you want to ice that arm."

She _really_ did, but she couldn't help shrugging and saying, "Nah." Then, with a final little smile at her father, she headed for the entrance of the apartment. It wasn't worth arguing any further, mostly because she knew there was no way she would win.

Of course, once she tromped up the stairs and actually entered the apartment, she kind of wished she'd stayed downstairs and unloaded the car with her father. Snow met her at the door with a reusable ice pack in one hand, a dish towel already wrapped around it, and three Advil in the other.

Emma raised a single eyebrow. "What, no water?" she asked, only half-teasing.

Snow smirked at her and gestured toward the kitchen island. Emma glanced past her mother and almost groaned when she spotted a glass or water and an Ace bandage lying in wait. "Take the pills," Snow instructed sternly, "sit with your arm up on the counter, and ice it for twenty minutes. I'll wrap it afterward."

"Yes, Mother," Emma grumbled. Although, considering that Snow really was Emma's mother, that retort had lost quite a bit of its luster. It worked so much better when Snow was Mary Margaret and they were simply joking about her being Emma's mother. Maybe she should try a "yes, ma'am" and a cheeky salute or something next time.

Again, Snow allowed a little smirk before schooling her features and fixing such a no-nonsense look on her daughter that Emma flinched. Damn, how was she able to _do_ that? Almost meekly, Emma took the ice pack and pills from her mother's hand and slipped past her to sit at the island.

Snow closed the door, smiling to herself at a motherly job well done.

Emma downed the pills with a gulp of water before touching the ice pack to her arm. "Ahh, holy shit!"

"What?" Snow cried, hurrying over to her daughter.

"This shit's freezing!"

In an instant, Snow relaxed and choked back a laugh. "Yes. You'd be freezing, too, if I just pulled you out of the freezer."

"No, I mean this shit's really freaking cold!"

"That's the point," Snow said, frowning at her daughter. "The cold will numb–"

"It freaking hurts!"

And suddenly, Snow understood Emma's problem. She slipped the ice pack from her daughter's hand and very lightly touched the edge of it to her bare arm. Emma let out an involuntary gasp at the temperature shock to her skin, but as Snow gently ran the ice in small circles over her arm, the cold became more bearable.

The gentle ministrations made Emma ridiculously uncomfortable. She was twenty-nine years old, for crying out loud. She should not need anyone to ice her arm for her, mother or no. But after spending so many long years looking after herself because no one else cared enough to do so, she couldn't deny that it felt sort of nice to have someone take care of her. Her mother, no less.

Eventually the tension in Emma's shoulders relaxed, at which point Snow set the ice pack flat on her arm. "Not all at once next time, hmm?" she said, her voice gentle.

Emma nodded at her, a small but grateful smile on her lips. The ice now felt marvelous as the cold began to dull the throbbing in her arm. It felt so good that she allowed her eyes to close as she propped her chin up on the palm of her good hand, her elbow on the counter.

A moment later, the sounds of Henry and David laughing about who knew what filtered through the apartment door. The door banged open a second later and an exuberant Henry bounded inside, giggling. Emma opened her eyes in time to see Henry, wooden sword in hand, practicing parries while walking backwards. David was coming after him with his own wooden sword. "Please don't tell me you two did that all the way up the stairs," Emma groaned.

"Okay," Henry shrugged, grinning at her. "We won't."

A sigh escaped Emma's lips. Perhaps Snow had had a point about giving the kid entire baggies of M he was sugar high. Also, it appeared as if he'd gotten off easy in the carrying things department. Henry only had his backpack hooked over his shoulders and the wooden sword in his hand. David was carrying everything else. "I totally could have helped you carry things," she muttered in her father's direction.

"No, you couldn't have," Snow insisted.

Emma rolled her eyes, making Henry clap a hand over his mouth to belatedly muffle a giggle.

For the next twenty minutes, Emma iced her arm and watched her family. Snow had begun to gather the ingredients for dinner – she'd apparently decided on chicken and broccoli alfredo, which was just fine with Emma – while David and Henry put away everything from the family's day.

She was so lost in the quiet togetherness that it almost took her by surprise when Snow reached over and removed the ice pack from her arm. She missed the cold as soon as it was gone, a fact which must have shown on her face because Snow gave her a comforting smile. "It'll feel better once we get it wrapped."

Emma nodded and, after a moment's hesitation, offered her injured arm to her mother. Snow grabbed the Ace bandage from the counter and began carefully wrapping her daughter's arm. Emma winced, which made Snow pause. "It's not too tight, is it?"

"No," Emma assured her.

Snow nodded in understanding. It wasn't the wrap that hurt but the contact in the first place. As such, she carefully but swiftly finished the wrap. She smiled at her daughter as she fastened the metal clips to the wrap. "Does that feel all right?"

"Yeah," Emma replied, smiling back. "Thanks."

"Of course." Then, before the moment could become awkward, she added, "You should go sit on the couch. It'll be more comfortable for you than sitting there at the island."

After all the day's activity, the couch did indeed sound wonderful. Emma pushed herself off the stool, crossed the room, and plopped down on the couch. She rested her hurt arm on the arm of the sofa, letting out a heavy breath as the throbbing eased under the wrap and the elevation.

After everything was put away, Henry plopped down on the sofa next to her, snuggling into her side. "How's your arm feeling?" he asked.

"Much better," she replied, which was true, though it was still mostly numb from the ice.

"Good. When your arm is all better, are you still going to go for weapon lessons?"

"Of course." One simple little injury was not going to defeat Emma Swan.

"Good," he repeated, giving a little nod as if to punctuate it.

A soft smile curled on Emma's lips when he cuddled closer to her. After a moment, she slouched on the sofa, making herself comfortable. She intended to sit there and do nothing until dinner was ready. _After all I've been through today_, she thought as she shut her eyes, _I freakin' earned it_.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note:** You guys are so amazing. Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and follows and favorites and for pushing me to open up the original one-shot into this story. I had a lot of fun this one; I hope you all did, too. :)

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Chicken and broccoli alfredo was a meal Snow had prepared many times, mostly because it was the only way she could get both Henry and Emma to eat broccoli. As such, she could pretty much prepare it on auto-pilot. It was no trouble at all to keep half an eye on her grandson and injured daughter while she cooked.

A smile curled on her lips when she saw the two of them cuddled up together on the sofa. Well, it was more that Henry had cuddled up to Emma, but she'd allowed it, which was in and of itself a minor miracle. The work that boy had done to help lower his mother's walls was nothing short of amazing. Snow suspected that Henry was the first person to get through to Emma in years. Snow herself had helped, of course, back when she was Mary Margaret, but she never would have gotten in without Henry priming Emma first, making her open herself up just enough for Mary Margaret to sneak in before the doors closed again.

And Henry was still doing that now. In his own little way, he was pushing her to open up more and more. They'd joked amongst themselves that Henry didn't have any ability to be subtle but the truth was that he could be incredibly subtle. Subtle and patient and understanding, and he'd been working so hard to help his mother relax and settle in with her family.

From her vantage point, Snow couldn't quite tell if Emma was dozing or not. It appeared as though she was; her eyes were closed, her injured arm propped up on the arm of the sofa, and her feet resting on the little folding coffee table. Ordinarily Snow would have chided Emma for putting her feet on the furniture but today, she figured she could allow it. Henry, who was paging through his storybook, seemed perfectly content to simply sit with her.

"How was she?" Charming murmured, startling Snow out of her reverie. "When she first got up here, I mean."

Snow once again darted her gaze to Emma before refocusing on the cooking chicken. "In pain but trying to hide it," she answered, keeping her voice as low as Charming's just in case that Emma wasn't asleep. "Stubborn might as well be that girl's middle name."

"Stubborn might as well be all our middle names," Charming replied, a wry smile on his lips. He fished a piece of penne out of the pot, blew on it, and popped it into his mouth.

Snow smirked. Innate stubbornness certainly ran through all their veins. A maddening trait to pass down, surely, but a wonderful one as well. Although that stubbornness made for moments like earlier when it had been a production just for Emma to allow Snow in enough to take care of her, it also gave them strength of character and spirit and steely resolve. It was that stubbornness that gave them the drive to never surrender and to fight for what was theirs.

She was about to say as much to Charming when he all of a sudden stiffened, his brow furrowed and his posture telegraphing concern. She followed his gaze, keeping one eye on the meal to make sure the chicken didn't burn. He was frowning at Emma, though Snow had no idea why. After a moment, he tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pasta pot, set it down on the counter, and crept over to the couch.

He gave a confused Henry a little smile as he crouched down next to the sofa, softly calling his daughter's name. She stirred at the sound of his voice, scrunching her nose and blinking her eyes open. "What're you doing?" she mumbled when he slid his hand under her injured one.

"Can you squeeze my hand?" he asked to the confusion of his entire family.

"It's not broken," Emma insisted as she sat up a little bit straighter, her voice verging on a whine. "Besides, didn't we already do this when I first got hurt?"

"Not quite," Charming gently replied. "Please just humor me and try to squeeze my hand."

After a swift roll of her eyes, Emma – very slowly, Snow noted with a pang of concern – closed her hand around Charming's. She managed that quite well but when she tried to give his hand a hard squeeze, she winced in pain. She met her father's eyes, suddenly looking as worried as everyone else. "It's not broken, is it?"

"No," Charming assured her with a tender smile. "If it was broken, you wouldn't have been able to turn it when we were in the woods. It's most likely a torn ligament or tendon, which is nothing to sneeze at but far easier to treat than a break."

"Why did you have her squeeze your hand just now?" Henry asked, his voice low in awe. Who knew his grandparents were so good at diagnosing injuries?

Charming carefully uncurled Emma's fingers from around his hand. Snow gasped, finally seeing what her husband had seen from across the room: slight bruising on the back of their baby girl's hand. "A simple twist doesn't bruise," he explained, first meeting Henry's eyes and then Emma's.

A flurry of emotions flickered across Emma's face. Love, awe, discomfort, and longing crossed her features in a fraction of a second. And then Emma caught herself. She schooled her features, wrinkled her nose at her father, and teasingly whined, "You're not going to give me a care plan, too, are you?"

"No," Charming chuckled. "Snow's already got you doing the right thing."

"Thank God," Emma grumbled, making everyone laugh. Still, Snow caught the tenderness and affection in her eye, tenderness and affection that hadn't been there the day before.

Charming smiled and stood, making a move to sit on the couch next to his grandson. Before he could sit, though, Henry got up, vacating his spot next to Emma. "Where do you think you're going?" Emma asked her son as he bounded towards the kitchen.

"I want to help Gramma with dinner!" he exclaimed.

Snow grinned to herself. She always looked forward to her little cooking lessons with Henry as she prepared meals for the the family. Dinner was a little too far along tonight for a complete lesson, but she would never turn away a pair of willing hands. "Will you stir the pasta for me?" she asked.

"Absolutely," Henry smiled.

"Thank you. In a few minutes, I'll teach you how to tell if the pasta is done."

Now Henry was beaming. "Okay!"

For a few minutes, all was quiet except for the sounds of dinner coming together. When Snow removed the chicken from the heat and set the pan on an unused burner to let the meat rest, she glanced across the room to check on the rest of her family. Charming had settled on the couch next to Emma, and she'd once again closed her eyes. This time, Snow knew she was dozing because her head was resting lightly on her father's shoulder. As for Charming, he'd taken her uninjured hand in his and was lightly running his thumb over the back of it. He was clearly thrilled to be so close to his daughter and to comfort her in any way he could.

With her husband taking such good care of their daughter, Snow was free to focus on dinner and on Henry. Her wonderful grandson, without whom this entire day never would have happened. Smiling softly, she slipped the wooden spoon from her grandson's hand and wrapped him in a tight hug,

Though clearly surprised, Henry easily returned the embrace. "What's this for?" he asked, looking up at her with a slightly confused expression.

"For being you."

He still looked confused but happily accepted the affection. When he let go, they returned their attention to the meal. Snow fished a piece of pasta out of the pot with the wooden spoon and blew on it before popping it into her mouth. It still had enough bite that it would be perfect for Henry to understand the difference in texture between not-quite-cooked and done.

Snow glanced around the apartment one more time, at Charming and Emma snuggled together on the sofa and Henry standing next to her, sneaking croutons for their salad right out of the bag. A contented little smile curled on her lips. Who would have thought that a day in the woods could bring four people so much closer together?


End file.
